
Gass. 



THE SCIENCE 



National Life. 



ORIGIN, FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT 



WkaIvTh ok Nations 



SCOTT F. HERSHEY, Ph. D. 



"aPR 2! 1884 ', : 



BURLINGTON, IOWA: 

J. R. RUPERT AND COMPANY. 

1884. 



^^% 



Copyright, 

1883, 
By J. R. Rupert and Company. 



DoNOHi-E & Hkkxrp.krrv, Printrrs anu Binders, Chicago. 



PREFACE 



The nineteenth is emphatically a century for the develop- 
ment of science. Each age of progress has shown special 
attention to some one great movement, which in that age 
seemed to have been born to struggle, and take its place with 
the forces of civilization. Philosophy, art, literature and com- 
merce, each had its age when it engaged the supreme attention 
of the world. And in the march of progress the period has 
arrived, and on the dial of time the hour is marked, when 
science, keen eyed and slow footed, with enthusiasm of heart, 
but with the knife of severe analysis, has taken possession of 
the world's thought. In other centuries men studied the phi- 
losophy of life, now we must study the science of life. Every 
great and important study, which is worth the attention of 
either the student or the busy man, must now be treated in the 
best methods of science. 

There is a science of government — of national life! No- 
where is it written in that fullness and popular style which is 
the claim of this work. Many books have been written on 
special departments of this broad science, but none which 
covers the whole field of national life as a science. 

There is an interest, that attracts the mind, about the origin 
of the early forms of government, their development into the 
great leading forms of nationality, and the rise and magnifi- 
cence of modern ideas of government. And there is a grandeur, 
unfound elsewhere, connected with the formation of our Amer- 
ican national life. To understand the long and marvelous 
movements which began in the Old World centuries ago and 
worked their way, unstopped by the rise and fall of nations, to 
the culmination of the new civilization; to know the story of 



IV PREFACE. 

oppression and persecution which prepared Huguenot, Holland 
reformer, and Quaker heroes, who as martyrs of right became 
founders of the greatest commonwealth of the world; to learn 
what are those sources out of which has sprung our peculiar 
industrial, political and social life; to comprehend the more 
simple rules and principles according to which the individual 
and nation shall prosper ; to do this is to acquire a valuable 
scientific education of national life. 

The object of this work in aiming to do this is twofold: 
First, to make every man a good citizen, for every good citizen 
is one more patriot who feels charged with the welfare of his 
nation; and in a second place, to show every man how success 
for himself and his country is due to wise attention to the 
science of political economy — the science of personal and 
national prosperity. It is a hope of the author that through 
this work American Citizenship may better understand and 
better love the genius of our National Life. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIBST. 



FORMATION AND GROWTH OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

CHAPTER I. 

Preliminary View of National Life. - - 17 

Likeness Between Personal and National Life— The Romance 
of Nationalities — Ultimate Human Destiny a Factor in all 
Human Government — The Necessity of Government — 
Divine Life the Authority for National Life. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Social Order ; or, the Basis of Government. 21 

Origin of the Spirit of Sociability — Society a Primitive Gift — 
The Social Order the Profoundest Fact of History — Civil- 
ization Rests Upon the Social Forces — Society a Blessing, 
Not an Evil — Society, Man's Charter for Liberty — Equality 
and Fraternity — The Cause of Anarchy — To Destroy the 
Social Order is to Introduce Social Libertinism — Origin of 
Society Not a Conventional Act — Relation Between Social 
and Religious Life. 



CHAPTER III. 

Abuses and Restrictions of Society. - - 27 

Selfishness — Self Love, the Idol of Selfishness — Free Love — 
Communism — Caste —The Right and Necessity of Restrict- 
ive Laws. 



VI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Government. - - - - -35 

Three Theories for Origin of Government — Natural Growth 
of the Germ of Government — The Hunter and Shepherd 
Chief — The Different Forms of Government: Monarchy, 
Oligarchy, Aristocracy, Tyranny and Democracy — Parlia- 
ment and Cabinet of the Republic — The English System — 
The American System — Three Simple Forms: the Mon- 
archy, Aristocracy and Republic- — Design of Government — 
Three Functions of Government: Legislative, Judicial and 
Executive. 



CHAPTER V. 

Special Movements Affecting National Life. - 4S 

The Rise of the Power of the Clergy — Feudalism — Decen- 
tralization Setting In — Benefits of Feudalism — The Cru- 
sades — Their Benefits — The New Impulse in Art, Litera- 
ture and Invention — Religious Liberty the Main Spring of 
Modern Civilization — The Most Remarkable Reform of 
the Ages — The Guiding Arm of its Genius — The Spirit of 
Freedom Among the Swiss — The Common Law of Eng- 
land — How the Common Law Differs from the Statute, 
Civil and International Law — The Common Law Produces 
the Magna Charta — Origin of the Magna Charta — Origin 
of Trial by Jury — Great Use of The Jury System in Main- 
taining Justice. 



CHAPTER VL 

What Led to the Discovery of America. - 69 

Sources of Modern Liberty — The Fifteenth Century — The 
Northmen — Decentralization of Religious Power — Mov- 
able Type — The New Force in Commerce — Mariners* 
Compass — The Polarity of the Magnet — Columbus — 
Isabel — The Greatest Wonder of the World — Prehistoric 
America — The Indian — Early Discoveries — The Glory of 
Columbus in Civilization. 



CONTENTS. vii 



CHAPTER VII. 



Elements Forming Our National Life. - 75 

What Induced People to Come to the New World — What Kind 
of Elements Found their Way to the New World — The 
Huguenots — Louis XIV. and the French Industries — Their 
Settlement in America — The Acadian Farmer Exiled — The 
Landmarks they Left — The Moral Mystery of Modern His- 
tory — The Pilgrims — Origin and Views — Romance of 
their Migration — The Mayflower Compact — The Pilgrims 
and Persecution — Their Character and Belief — The Hol- 
land Reformers — The Skill of Holland — Holland in Com- 
merce — The First Free-Trade Nation — The Cradle of 
Great Reforms — Character of Industry and Ingenuity — 
- The Quakers — Origin — Their Persecution — The High 
Qualities of their Views — The Perfection of their Moral 
System — The Quaker View of Government — Scotland and 
the Stuarts — The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians — Why they 
Left Scotland for Jersey — The Founders of Carolina — The 
Age of Persecution — The Grand Elements Entering Into 
the Formation of America. 

CHAPTER Vin. 

Influence of Great Characters. - - loi 

Personal Influence a Known Quantity — Zoroaster — Con- 
fucius — Moses — Solon — Homer — Caesar — Alfred the 
Great — Peter the Great — Relation of Men and Circum- 
stances — What Directs the Course of Empire — Bacon — 
Joan of Arc — Penn — His Moral and Political Code — Allen 
and his Mountain Boys — John Adams — Burke — Franklin — 
First Society for the Abolition of Slavery — Washing- 
ton — Jefferson and American Statesmanship — Patrick 
Henry — La Fayette — Robert Morris, the Financier — Pu- 
laski the Pole — Putnam — Montgomery — Wayne — 
Greene — Moultrie and Heroic Patriotism. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Formation of Our National Life. - - 121 

The Greatest Enterprise of the Age — The Contribution of the 
Ages — The Chief Glory of the Revolution — The Origin 
of Nations — The Review of a Century — France and Napo- 



viii CONTENTS. 

leon — Greece, and New Life — Austria Demolishing Her 
Throne — Hungary and Parliament — Russia and Emanci- 
pation — China and Progress — Belgium and Equality — 
Internal Resources of Our Country — The Three Great 
Doctrines of the Age — Internationality — The Destiny of 
the Nation under these Doctrines — Three Most Beneficial 
Results — The Wisest of All Nations — Value of the Study 
of National Life. 



PART SECOND. 



Political Economy. - - - - 129 

The Meaning of this Great Industrial Science — The American 
Boy and Industry — The Grand Work for this Science — 
Ultimate Object of the Science — A Social Science — An 
Experimental Science — The Advantages of Reading this 
Science — The Three Elements of the Science. 

CHAPTER I. 

Outlines and Divisions of Political Science. 140 

Production and Consumption — Branches Growing Out of 
These — Distribution and Exchange. 

CHAPTER II. 

Labor. ._---- 142 

Facts to be Considered in the Study of Production — What is 
Labor — How Labor must Complement Nature — The Two 
Grand Divisions of Labor — Four Principal Classes of 
Physical Labor — Three Classes of Mental Labor — How 
Discovery must Go Before Accomplishment — Commercial 
Value of Brain Work. 

CHAPTER III. 

How TO Increase the Productiveness of Labor. 151 

Two Vital Elements of Labor — Animal Force as an Agent of 
Labor — Why Animal Strength is More Available for Some 
Purposes than Steam — Natural Agents — The Problem of 
the Division of Labor — Peculiar Adaptation of American 
Industrial Life to Economic Principles. 



CONTENTS. ix 



CHAPTER IV. 



Natural, Human and Mechanical Agents of 

Labor. . . _ . . j^g 

Land as the Principal Industrial Agent — The Two Things on 
which its Value Depends — Cost of Animal Strength — The 
Bicycle in Rivalry with the Horse — The Inanimate Natural 
Agents — The Most Powerful Natural Agents — What is 
Meant by the Sustaining Period of Human Strength — Why 
Machinery will not Drive Men Out of Labor — What is 
Skill — Why Skilled Labor is More Costly than Mere Phys- 
ical — The Accuracy and Power of Machinery — How the 
Lowlands of Holland were Drained — History of the Manu- 
facture of Cotton Goods — The Danger of Extreme Com- 
petition. 

CHAPTER V. 

Centralized Labor in Great Industrial Estab- 
lishments. - - - - -171 

Requirements of Large Establishments — How to Attain the 
Highest Productive Power of Labor — Labor follows 
Capital — Increased Productiveness is a Benefit to the 
Consumer — The Cotton Cloth — The Greatest Consequence 
of the Introduction of Labor Saving Machinery is that of 
Intellectual Cultivation. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Restrictions Upon the Policy of Centralized 

Labor. ..... lyy 

Pin Making — The Restriction of Limited Capital — The 
Restriction of Limited Demand — Glass Manufacture — 
High Cost of Producing a Restriction — Why Division of 
Labor is a Benefit to the Lower Classes — How Transporta- 
tion Affects Centralized Labor 

CHAPTER VIL 

The Labor Question in England. - - 182 

England, the Battle Field of Industrial Sciences — The One 
Favorable Prospect — Cheapness of Money — Iron Indus- 
try — The Agricultural Strike — Cooperation in England — 
The System of Piece Work — Friction Between Labor and 
Capital. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Labor Question in Germany. - - 191 

Causes of Discontent among German Laborers — Disadvan- 
tages in Industry — Condition in Prussia — The Cry for Re- 
lief — The Resort to Socialism — Present State of Socialism 
— The Lesson of Political Science in this Labor Trouble. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Labor Question in the United States. 196 

The Labor Problem Easier to Adjust in America than in 
England — Freedom in Labor — Labor is Better Paid in 
America than in England — Interest of the Laborer in his 
Labor — View of the Great English Economists — Advan- 
tages of Diversified Industries — The Problem of the Age. 

CHAPTER X. 

Strikes. ..... 201 

The Rights of Laborers to Strike — Effect upon Labor — The 
Boomerangs of Industry — The Telegraph Operators' 
Strike — The Railroad Strike — Fisk, the Pirate King of 
Industry — Enormous Destruction of Property — The Strike 
and the Commune. 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Moral Feature of the Labor Question. 207 

How Morality and Intelligence Affect Industry — No Surplus 
Men in the World — A Cabin Home Better than a Mansion 
Tenement — Labor and Justice — Labor and Benevolence — 
The Labor Interests and Intemperance — Labor and Econ- 
omy — Labor and Health — Manhood the Basis of Eleva- 
tion — The Law of Sympathy. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Paid and Cooperative Labor. - - 216 

Two Pen Pictures — The Manufacturing Village in the Val- 
ley — Low Wages — The Pinch of Distress — A Cooperative 
Village — How the Community is Managed — Success of 
the Enterprise — The Manchester Silk Industry — A Solution 
of the Question of Labor and Capital. 



CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER XIII, 

Capital. - - - - ■ - 225 

Capital, Wealth, Money — Where Capital Comes From — Sev- 
eral Forms of Capital — How Capital is Increased — How- 
it is Limited — How Capital Depends on Reproduc- 
tion — What Credit Is — Importance of Capital as an 
Economic Force. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Use of Money in Production. - - - 232 

The Use of Barter — Commerce — Object of Money in Com- 
merce — How Money is Produced — The Object of Coining 
Money — What Proportion of Capital is in Money. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Capital and Labor. - - - - 235 

The Twin Giants of Civilization — How Laborers May Acquire 
Property in the United States — Peculiar Advantage of 
Laborers in the United States — The Claim of Labor upon 
Capital — Why Labor Cannot Disconnect from Capital — 
How Capital is Dependent Upon Labor — The Investment 
of Capital in Western Lands — No Divorce of Labor and 
Capital — Relative Growth of Capital and Labor. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Effect of Legislation on Capital and Labor. 242 

The Principle of the Government — Protection the Chief Aim 
of Legislation — Internal Improvements — Use and Abuse 
of Monopolies — Two Classes of Legitimate Monopolies — 
How Nature Indicates the Policy of Monopoly — The 
Ground on which a Monopoly can be Justified — The 
Wrongness of Interest Laws — The Question of Protection. 

CHAPTER XVn. 

Obligation of the Rich to the Poor. - 254 

The Law of Being — The Crime of Idleness — What Class 
Cannot Work — Why is it Wrong to Help the Indolent — 
How Paupers Increase — The Property Question — The 
Correct Policy by which to Deal With the Idle — Prison 
Labor. 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Children's Labor. .... 259 

A Serious Problem in Political Economy — Some Chips from 
the Laws of Massachusetts — Ignorance of Factory Chil- 
dren — Wrong for Children to be Among the Bread Winners 
of the State — How Factory People Live — Bad Effect 
of Children's Labor. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Consumption. ..... 263 

Consumption the Ultimate End of Production — What is 
Destroyed by Consumption — Involuntary, Natural and 
Accidental Consumption — Destruction by Insects in Eng- 
land — Evil Effects of Fashion — Notional and Voluntary 
Consumption. 

CHAPTER XX. 

Productive Consumption. ... 267 

Skill, Labor and Capital — The Rule of Economy — How Heavy 
Loss is to be Avoided — Every Particle of Material to be 
Used in Production — The Amount of Labor to be Con- 
sumed in a Given Production — How Labor is Wasted — 
The Story of Say. 

CHAPTER XXL 

Consumption for Gratification. - - 273 

The Expense of Gratification — Moral and Intellectual Gratifi- 
cation Should Never be Stinted — Time Spent in Moral 
Culture and Thoughtless Dissipation — Advantages of In- 
tellectual Pleasure — Importance of Domestic Economy. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Public Consumption. .... 279 

By Taxation — Peculiar Methods of Taxation — Venice — Ham- 
burg — Switzerland — Four Principles of Adam Smith 
Relative to Taxation — First Purpose of Public Consump- 
tion — Internal Improvement Sustained by Public Con- 
sumption — Value of the Storm Signal — Pauperism, How 
to be Supported — The Cheapest Defense of Nations is 
Justice. 



CONTENTS. xiii 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Distribution — Property. ... 286 

The Origin of Ownership in Land — Three Theories Concern- 
ing Ownership in Land — Equal Distribution of Land — 
Communism and Socialism — Greeley and his Benevolent 
Fancy — Serious Objection to this Theory — Theory of 
Government Owning the Land — Theory of Private Prop- 
erty — Principle at the Bottom of this Theory — The Right 
of a Father to Distribute his Property at Death — Who 
shall Own the Land — A Prospective Industrial Revolution 
in England and Ireland — Gladstone's Irish Policy — Civil 
Protection. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Distribution — Public Lands — Land Laws. 294 

How the Public Domain was Obtained — The Provision for 
Schools — The Area of Public Lands — How to Procure 
Them — Laws Regarding Tenancy — Laws of Usury — Mort- 
gage Laws — Mechanic's Liens — Management of the 
Public Domain. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Distribution — Wages. ... 302 

Conditions Affecting the Price of Labor — The Cost of the 
Children Affects the Wages of the Parent — The Considera- 
tion for Old Age Affects Wages — The Lowest Possible 
Price of Simple Labor — Why so many Children Die in 
Infancy — Effect of Climate on Wages — Why Skilled 
Wages are Higher — The Career of Stephenson — Change 
of Employment as Affecting Wages — Character of the Em- 
ployment — Certainty or Uncertainty of Success — Com- 
petition — Evils of Labor Unions — Wages of Women — 
Effect of Taxation on Wages. 

CHAPTER XXVL 

Distribution — Interest. . . - 315 

The Advantage of Skilled Labor with Borrowed Capital Over 
Simple Labor Without Any Capital — What is Interest — 
Four Things Affecting the Rate of Interest — The Risk of 
Losing Money — Convenience of Investment — How Profit 
Affects Interest — Injustice of Usury Laws. 



xiv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Distribution — Rent. - - - 320 

What is Rent — On What the Amount of Rent Depends — Fer- 
tility of Soil — The Desert of Arabia — The Orange Land of 
Florida — Situation of Land an Important Element in the 
Value of Rent — Renting Water-Falls and Mines — Relation 
of Insurance to Rent. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Distribution — Profits. - - - 325 

To Whom Does Profit Belong— What is Profit — Why the 
Profits are More in a Large than a Small Business — How 
Profit is Affected by Risks — Why Educated Labor should 
have Larger Profits than Uneducated — Distribution of Prof- 
its — How to Avoid Antagonism Between Labor and Capital. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Exchange. . • . - - . 331 

What is Exchange — The Greatest Problem of Political Science 
— How Value is Determined — The Process of Exchange a 
Useful Industry — Intelligence, Wealth and Morality Impor- 
tant Aids in Exchange — Bad Effect of Business Stagnation — 
Depressing Effect of Duties. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Money as an Instrument of Exchange. - 344 

Different Articles which have been Used for Money — Why 
Metals were Preferred — The Origin of Coined Money — 
How Money Represents Value, but Does Not Establish 
It — The Object of Trade — Money Not Wealth — What is a 
Scarcity, and What an Abundance of Money — Why this 
Does Not Show the Adversity or Prosperity of the Country — 
How the Country is Affected by Too Little or Too Much 
Money — Why Little Money is Used in International Trade. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Specie as the Basis for Money. - - 359 

The Necessity for Money — Why the Metals Have a Special 
Fitness as a Circulating Medium — Universal Desire — Val- 
uable — Durable — IJnder What Condition the Commerce 
of the World Must Cease — Why Money Should be Easily 
Verified — Why Over Production will not Hurt the Money 
Market. 



• CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Specie and The Government. . . . 366 

The Legitimate Agency of Government with Respect to Money 
— Establishing a Legal Tender — The Coinage of Money — 
History of Coinage in the United States, and Description 
of the Mint— Shall Gold and Silver Both be Made Legal 
Tender — Has Government the Right to Raise the Denom- 
ination of a Coin. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Credit an Instrument of Exchange. - - 379 

What is Credit — The Leading Forms of Credit — Book 
Accounts — Bank Accounts — How Bills of Exchange Came 
into Use — The Promissory Note — Stocks — Bonds — How 
Credit is Abused — How a Commercial Crisis is Produced — 
Advantage of Credit. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 
Banks and Banking. .... 3^0 

Origin of the Words Bank and Bankrupt — Origin of Modern 
Banking — Banking in Greece, Rome, Venice — Invention 
of Banking Money — Introduction of Banking into Eng- 
land — Origin and History of the Bank of England — The 
London Clearing House — Banking in Scotland — Banking 
in the United States. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Different Kinds of Banks. . _ . 406 

Four Leading Classes of Banks — Banks of Deposit — The 
Advantage of the Draft — The Famous Bank of Amster- 
dam — Banks of Exchange — Banks of Discount and Loan — 
Savings Banks — Banks of Issue and Circulation — The 
Amount Which a Bank May Safely Circulate — Four Ways 
by which Banks Make Profits. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

The United States National Bank System. - 418 

The National Bank Act — How a National Bank is Estab- 
lished — What Becomes of Worn Out Bills — How a Bank 
is Closed Up — Splendid Record of the National Banks — 
How our National Banks Originated. 



Xvi CONTENTS. ^ 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Paper Money. . . . - - 424 

The Advantages of Paper Money — Economy of Paper Money — 
How it Has the Advantages of Convenience — The Disad- 
vantages of Paper Money — How it is Liable to Forgery — 
Fraud in Banks — Fluctuation the Most Dangerous Ten- 
dency of Paper Money. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Bank Notes and Greenbacks. - - 435 

The Issue of Bank Bills a Paying Enterprise — A Bank Bill is 
Not Money — The Chief Reasons for Bank Bills — Superi- 
ority of the United States National Bank System — What is 
a Greenback — Should there be More Greenbacks — Inter- 
nal Improvements. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

International Trade. - - - 439 

What Has Developed International Trade — The New Spirit of 
Science — International Trade in Ancient Times — Two 
Main Theories of International Trade — The Protective 
Tariff — Theory of Free Trade — The Doctrine of a Low 
Tariff. 

CHAPTER XL. 

The Liquor Traffic. . . . . 446 

Two Plain Propositions of Political Science — Magnitude of 
the Traffic — Consumption of Liquor in United States and 
England for One Year — Liquor Destructive of the Working 
Powers of the Bodies — How Shakespeare Plays the Role 
of the Philosopher — The Economic Wisdom of Jefferson — 
Effect of Liquor on the Brain — How Booth was Prepared 
to Assassinate the President — Seventy Cases Examined 
After Death — Average Life of Temperate and Intemperate 
Persons — The Bill of Indictment put by Political Science 
Against the Traffic — Industrial Losses Caused by Liquor — 
Liquor the Cause of Crime, Insanity, Pauperism — Methods 
of Restraint — The License System — Doubtful Wisdom 
of Prohibition in All States — Justice of the Permission or 
Local-Option Policy — America in the Future. 



CONTENTS. xvii 



CHAPTER XLI. 

The Malthusian Theory. .... ^^q 

Thomas Malthus — His Picture of the Future — Unmeasured 
Humanity — The Earth to Become Overpopulated — Dis- 
proval of this Theory — Grave Problem of Population — 
Land Growing Less Productive — Population Increas- 
ing — The Only Hope. 

CHAPTER XLIL 

Tabular Analysis of the American System of 

Government. - - - - 466 

Completeness of the System — Reasons for Efficiency in Gov- 
ernment — Table. 

CHAPTER XLIIL 

State Government. - . . 463 

Analysis of State Government — Rights and Powers of a 
Governor — Functions of the State Departments — The 
Legislative Branch — How a Measure Becomes a Bill and a 
Bill a Law — The State Judicial System. 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

County and Township Government. - 474 

Analysis of Local Government — Origin of the word County — 
Origin of Sheriff. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

City Government. - . . . 475 

Analysis of City Government — Why it is Difficult to have 
an Honest Municipal Government — Responsibility of the 
Mayor. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

The Rights of Citizenship. - - 480 

What Rights Belong to a Citizen — How these Rights rest in 
the Constitution and in the Common Law of the Land. 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

Territories, Public Lands, Colonies and Mani- 
fest Destiny. . . . . 482 

Features of Our Commonwealth — The Advantages of Landed 
Possession — How a Territory Becomes a State. 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

Natural Resources of the United States. - 486 
The Mineral Garden of the World — The Valley of Gold — Pro- 
duction of Gold and Silver in the United States; in the 
World — The Greatest Copper and Lead Deposits in the 
World — Iron the King of Minerals — Production — Its 
Use in Manufacturing Industries — Coal — Yearly Produc- 
tion — Zinc — Tin — Nickel — The Salt Industry — Petro- 
leum — Timber. 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

American Production. ... 4^8 

Agriculture as the Pursuit of the American People — Corn — 
Amount Produced in 1880 — Wheat the Staple Product of 
the World — Rice — Crop of 1880 — Potatoes — Tobacco — 
The Revenue from Tobacco — Sugar and Molasses — Cot- 
ton — Yield of Cotton — Table of Products — Cattle — Ex- 
ports — Manufacturing Interests. 

CHAPTER L. 

Development. .... 609 

American Development — The Centre of Population — Growth 
of Our Commerce — Boats — Railroads — Telegraph. 

CHAPTER LI. 

Ultimate America. . . . . 524 

The Nineteenth Century — Financial Condition of Europe — 
Of the United States — America's To-morrow. 

CHAPTER LII. 

Wealth and Commerce of Nations. - 528 

Farms and their Value — Farm Products — Live Stock — Fish- 
eries — Gold and Silver Production in the United States — 
Newspapers — Number of Persons Unable to Read or 
Write — Debts, Revenues, Expenditures and Commerce of 
Nations. 



The Science of National Life. 



CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY VIEW OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

MAN is like "grass which groweth up and flourisheth 
in the morning; in the evening it is cut down, and 
withereth." So says the old Hebrew sage concerning the 
life of man. Like unto this a political sage has said con- 
cerning the life of nations : " Empires are only sand hills 
in the hour-glass of Time ; they crumble spontaneously by 
the process of their own growth." 

The story of the origin, construction and development 
of nationalities is a romance in real life, working through 
the centuries. It is the plaintive story of a strong tide in 
which moves the progress of the human race. Political and 
personal disquietude, producing periodic ferments on the 
surface of society, ordinarily prompt us to contemplate 
the events composing it, apart from the essential forces in 
the stream of progression which rises from immutable laws ; 
but amid the perplexities which surround the ever}^ move- 
ment in the growth of the race, the link is never broken, 
and the affinities are never lost, but are inseparably bound 
up with the functual mass of causes which connect this 
well-connected story. 

Ultimate human destiny is a factor in all the tendencies 
of human government; man is. everywhere and at all times 
practically the same in a world of vanishing forms, though 
unchangeable laws. He fails in directing governmental 
forms by the practical wisdom of his personal experience, 
or in giving them the solidity of immutable laws ; so while 
nations and states may make constitutions and compacts, 
2 17 



1 8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

and declare codes and ordinances, and while men dream 
of the permanency of their statecraft, the temple falls, and 
anon the crumbling remnants are molded into new forms^ 
alike to be subject to the fatuity of never-ending change. 

National life is constitutional unrest. Conscious of its 
imperfections and vices, it is dissatisfied with its nature and 
is in a condition of internal conflict ; it breaks over barriers 
which these imperfections interpose, and pushes away from 
what is to what is hoped for; the march of its career 
may be checked, even turned for awhile, but it is a forward 
march. It tramples upon obstacles and confronts difficul- 
ties and disasters and survives them, though vastly changed 
by them.. In theories it is changeable ; in principles it is 
immutable. It dissolves forms ; it never abrogates ideas. 
It submits to political fashions and cringes before political 
intrigues; it never altogether repudiates justice, or stifles 
that virtue of the right to exist, which is inherent in all 
forms of government. While it may be deaf to entreaty^ 
it is never dead to the internal sentiment of truth. While 
selfishness and tyranny may give it the authority of cruelty, 
its divine sense of equality cannot be crucified. It is time's 
endless stream of divine justice threading its way through 
the generations of human life, and when lifted from earth 
can only be taken back into eternity. 

An undoubted necessity for man, an indispensable bless- 
ing to society, it saps the energies of its people while 
pretending to serve their interests. Pretending to support 
industries which enliven trade and develop commerce, and 
thereby produce the consequent comforts of life, it may, 
under the sophistry and self-interest of its engineers, stag- 
nate these very industries which are its intent to encourage,, 
and create a commercial famine. Expressing its intention 
to secure the safety of life and enhance the values of prop- 
erty, it may under unwise legislation jeopardize life and 
decrease values in property. Instigating movements of 
education to establish higher grades of enlightenment, it 
may by wrong methods and by false opinions as to what 



THE NEED AND RIGHT OF GOVERNMENT. I9 

constitute the right aims and objects of education, direct a 
people's intellect into a vicious channel, where the moral 
sense and spiritual integrity might be suppressed. It may 
be a people's best protector and preserver; it can be their 
worse tyrant and oppressor. 

A nation's life may have the outward form of the mon- 
archy or the republic ; it may take the shape of despotism 
or democracy. It may allow tyranny to wield its scepter, or 
republicanism to direct its functions ; it may vest its author- 
ity in kingcraft, or exercise it through political equalities. 
Government itself never becomes extinct ; its form fre- 
quently undergoes changes. The slow growth of an age 
may perish in a single moon. The poet expresses this: 

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state, 
An hour may lay it in the dust. 

Ofificial outrage and wild mobism kindled the torch of 
revolution in France to burn, in one hour of trifling with 
principles, the settled forms of centuries of slow growth. 
The foundations were disturbed. The monarchy founded 
by Clovis the First away back in the fifth century, memor- 
able for thirteen hundred years of imperial sweep, was, like 
a potter's vessel, shivered to atoms and swept away as the 
rubbish of worn-out forms. The anarchy of the many and 
the tyranny of the few vied with each other to terrorize 
mankind with their rivalry of atrocities, as they tore the 
fragments of the commonwealth to tatters, which in turn 
were to coalesce in the Napoleonic dynasty. 

The need and right of government are of the immutable 
things of time, and may be looked upon as the evidences of 
divinity's ways in the affairs of men ; but the form in which 
national life asserts itself is either subject to the whims of 
fickle opinion or to the changing views of growing state- 
craft ; as the things which are determined and ordained by 
the very essence of right and justice are a part of the great 
providential scheme of the universe. National life is to be 
regarded as an element of the social compact that has been 
projected into the human intellect by God. Paine deserves 



20 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the censure of all thoughtful men when he says: "Govern- 
ments at best are but a necessary evil." In form they may 
be; in fact, never. As human nature is now constituted 
government is not only a necessity to control, regulate and 
limit, but a blessing to unify and harmonize. It is not only 
regulative, but it is fraternal and fatherly; desired by the 
better, as well as necessitated by the worse, elements in our 
nature. By tracing any form of government back to its 
origin it will be noticed that its elemental laws were pro- 
duced by either the traditional or revealed authority of the 
divine law. From this it is quite clear that the right to 
govern is divine; but it is a right that cannot be clairned 
by men as vested in them, nor is it inherent in forms, but 
alone resting in the very essentiality of right and wisdom. 

Government, then, finds its first right to be — its highest 
claim to exist — in the permission and arrangement of God. 
National life fundamentally rests back upon the divine life. 
God is the beginning of law as well as "the basis of liberty." 
He has put the law of eternal right into the dictates of the 
human conscience. This law of the conscience, springing 
out of God into the law of the right of private opinion, the 
right of private judgment, and the right of personal action ; 
the right of each respecting the same right in others; and 
all together necessitating the union of rights, is that out of 
which has grown the principle of equality. The elemental 
principles, as well as the organic functions of human law^ 
which are primarily the germs of national life, are ordinances 
from the supreme lawgiver of the universe; and in the 
original settlement of the race on earth were impressed in 
the feeling and reason of heart and mind. When God con- 
stituted human happiness subject to association, or union, 
he not only gave man the inherited privilege, but qualified 
the need for government. The scene on Sinai is one 
instance of many where God wrote laws for man. The 
laws of divinity impress the laws of humanity in spite of 
their often grotesque forms. Human government is an 
offspring of the divine government. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SOCIAL ORDER; OR, THE BASIS OF GOVERNMENT. 

MAN is fitted for the enjoyments of national life as 
well as individual. His social life is the basis of 
both. It does not seem that God has made man by mere 
chance with accidental qualities, for we find mankind to 
possess certain definite faculties and desires which move 
and rule them, whether they are savage or civilized, and 
whether they are in color red, white, black or brown. In 
national life as well as personal the spirit of human destiny 
is no respecter of persons. 

When God animated man with the breath of life He 
also shed in his soul light and justice — the light of truth 
and the justice of charity. The natural conceptions which 
man would form of this truth and charity developed socia- 
bility. In fact, the mystery of creation was not complete 
until God stamped that nature, which had, under His creator- 
ship, become sensible and reasonable, with the seal of a 
higher perfection, when He saw that it would- not be good 
for man to be alone. Society is one of the early primitive 
gifts with which God has endowed us. It is the first institu- 
tion ordained for man. No beirfg stands alone, not only 
in number, neither alone in selfishness. Whether above or 
below us, in God or in nature, association is on every side 
observable. God, who is one, is not alone and solitary ; He 
includes three persons in the unity of his being. The 
inferior world, divided into a multitude of different groups 
and conditions, presents none in which the condition and law 
of the creature is solitude. At each stage of existence there 
is number and union ; that is, society. When beings distinct 
by individuality, alike by nature, approach and give each 
other their life, blend together reciprocally, act upon each 

21 



22 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

other by mutual relations, then there is society. Such is the 
state of all creatures inferior to man ; such is the state, under 
a more perfect union, of the divine persons in the deityship. 
Number without unity is positive disorder. Wherever num- 
ber and union exist society is a settled necessity. 

Man's social state is one of the profoundest figures in the 
world's histoiy, one of the strongest qualities in his nature. 
It has covered the centuries of time with its institutions. 
Stronger than time it has resisted all disasters, and has con- 
stantly recovered itself in the ruins under which degenerate 
movements buried themselves. It is human society which has 
led our infancy through the hazards of the primitive migra- 
tions which divided the earth, and, after dispersing us upon 
all the habitable shores, drew us together in spite of the 
jealousy of the desert and the tempest of the ocean. It is 
human society which has built our celebrated cities, devel- 
oped resources, encouraged arts, founded sciences, propa- 
gated letters, raised the mind of man to almost infinite intel- 
ligence, and given to his heart the glory of all virtues and a 
willingness to bear all sacrifices. In fine, human society is 
the permanent mode of earthly life; and if in the depths of 
the forests or on the rocky shores of unfruitful isles, the 
traveler finds groups of people deprived of all civilization and 
enlightenment, still he finds among them some rudiments, 
rough though they be, of the social state, certain vestiges or 
outlines of conditions and relations showing how incapable 
man is of living distinctly apart and alone ; and these pri- 
mary elements that compel his association are the evidences 
of his capability for civilization, for civilization rests upon 
the social forces. Without society there could be neither 
civilization nor government. 

Society is a blessing, not an evil ; though Voltaire was as 
willing to decry society as Paine to disclaim government. 
Society of a necessity entails burdens; but for these we 
should not hate it. We may deplore dependence and labor 
in society. Dependence first, for society exists only by 
unity , unity is formed by ties ; those ties, when intelligent 



OBJECTIONS TO THE SOCIAL ORDER. 23 

beings are concerned, change into obligatory laws for the 
conscience, and are maintained by the double authority of 
public power and opinion. This is a yoke accepted by the 
virtue which does not separate its condition from the condi- 
tion of others, but which is a burden to the life that lives 
only for itself; and therefore, as solitude is destructive of all 
laws, because it destroys all relations and recognizes no obli- 
gations as binding, selfishness seeks solitude in order to 
escape from dependence. 

In no less a degree we may hate labor, another conse- 
quence of society. A few men scattered over an immense 
territory live at little cost. Nature, abandoned to herself, 
supplies their wants, and separation, lessening in them the 
attraction which reproduces life, their number increases so 
slowly that it does not disturb their indolence. The man 
of society on the contrary has a fraternity as prolific as is 
his heart; he sees under the blessing of God the family 
changing into a tribe, the tribe merging into a community, 
the community into a nation ; tent-grounds changed into 
cities ; territories are defined by boundaries ; nature willingly 
increasing her products before the increase of mankind. The 
industries of man exercise a mastership over the resources of 
nature. The grace of art must supplement the vigor of 
nature, and assiduous labor must second the inventions of 
art. Numberless employments solicit the arms of men, and 
the arms of men in their turn solicit employment. Our 
veins are filled with the fruit of our toil, and each drop of 
blood is purchased at the price of some labor. This is quite 
enough to persuade some that the social order is either a 
mistake or an imposture. 

But notwithstanding this, society is man's primitive char- 
ter for liberty, equality and fraternity. But it is a liberty 
which is not only necessary that he may remain a moral 
creature, that he may not be subdued by exaggerated and 
unjust forces which spring from self-interest; but in which 
obedience becomes a duty, that he may keep his place, by 
the help of a common and sacred law, in the home which a 



24 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

nation makes for him. It is an equality which not only 
reveals to him his just and common rights with all men, but 
which holds him in the rank in which God has placed him 
by a common origin with all his fellow creatures. It is a 
fraternity which not only strengthens the confidence and 
love — which are the surest guarantees of a correct form of 
the social order — but produces a veneration to acknowledge 
the authority of truth, the magistracy of virtue, the power 
of laws, whether in the subject, the legislator or the ruler. 

A true social order which will establish durable institu- 
tions is possessed of a liberty which recognizes the duty of 
obedience, an equality which recognizes the duty of right 
to others, and a fraternity which recognizes the duty of ven- 
eration. Above the imposing symbols of rights is the divine 
symbol of duties. This is the only way to insure that 
devotedness and disinterestedness by which alone virtue 
will triumph over the ardent passions of greed and selfish- 
ness which, since the origin of society, have never ceased to 
conspire for its ruin. 

Human society in its better form is not only hated on 
account of the duties it imposes, but also for another reason. 
God being the founder of society is also its preserver. He 
maintains it by the power of His name, which is perpetuated 
by the guardianship of His truth. No nation has been able 
to exist without that sacred and venerated name ; no com- 
munity of political or moral faith has been built up without 
that cornerstone of the eternal temple ; and vain the impious 
hope to abolish the memory of God until that society be 
abolished which is its depository, and which lives upon this 
inherited treasure. 

The social quality and the religious quality are attributes 
of mankind born on the same day of the divine work, the 
one having regard to time, the other to eternity ; distinct in 
their domain and end, but indissolubly united in the heart 
of man, sustaining one another, falling together, braving 
together by their common grace the hatred that pursues 
both. Here is discoverable the opening cause of the leaven 



MAN S ADAPTATION FOR SOCIETY. 2$ 

of anarchy which rouses the irresponsible classes against 
society. Society is no other thing than order, and order has 
in God its invulnerable root. Whoever does not love God 
has a natural cause for hatred toward the social state, which 
is one of the divine products. To deny the reality of the 
religious sentiment is to destroy the integrity of the social 
sentiment. The effect of this, shown quite often, would be 
to destroy social order and produce social libertinism. 

From this it naturally comes that anti-religious move- 
ments invariably produce anti-social views and agencies. 
This was observant in France, where a crusade against God 
terminated in a crusade against human society. It is not 
surprising that a Voltaire, ridiculing divine truth, found his 
compliment in a Robespierre, writing with a pen no less bold 
against all social order. The savage state was exalted as 
the primitive state of man, and incomparably the best. It 
is clearly demonstrated that society is in conformity with 
the essence of God's truth; it is just as clear that it is in 
conformity with the constitution of man, since everywhere 
and always he has lived in society. He has never been 
observed in any considerable number, living without some 
form of the social order. Within this order are all the 
elements for civilization and culture. Any man, or any 
tribe, leaving society can return to it only by means of 
inducements from society itself, bringing from the common 
center truth, justice, order and devotion. Whoever by 
ungoverned passions rejects the social order is a voluntary 
savage; so much the more degraded from having felt the 
virtue of truth and goodness and forsaken its ways of peace 
and beauty. Those who fall by their fault below civilization 
are worse than those who are not yet drawn up to it. 

Man lives, then, socially, because of the aptitude of his 
constitution for intercourse and association. It is not, nor 
was it originally, a conventional act that resolved him into 
society; he was born in it. It is a condition of his instinct, 
as well as his moral necessity. Plants of a species group 
together; animals of a kind herd together; man to man is 



26 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

bound by those same peculiar laws, but more by the higher 
brain and heart forces of thought and emotion. 

Man is fitted for society, because in giving him being God 
initiated him to the social order, and deposited in human 
hfe truth and love as social germs out of which grow right 
and justice, the germs of law and government. Truth and 
love are the basis of social order; whenever souls meet, 
having received these gifts, the principle of society meets 
in them, and tends to unite them for common weal. 

These two things are equally true, namely: that society 
is natural to man and that it is of divine institution. It is 
natural to man, because an intelligent and moral being has 
received in his creation the intelligible germs of truth and 
love; it is of divine institution, because it is God who first 
placed man in active possession of truth and love, and who 
gave him the impulse to apply these principles of truth and 
love to the many-sided duties of life. Then the social order, 
adapted to man and as the providential arrangement of God, 
is the reason as well as basis of national life. 



CHAPTER III. 

ABUSES AND RESTRICTIONS OF SOCIETY. 

MANKIND are so formed that they naturally and 
unavoidably cling to a social system for mutual 
protection as well as general happiness. This being the 
end, as well as occasion, of the social arrangement, and 
the provision for protection suggestive of something against 
which protection is sought, and happiness being modified 
by prevalent evil, abuses are constantly arising which tend 
to reduce the comforts and break up the harmony of society. 
Abuses against law and order; against virtue and justice; 
against peace and tranquility; abuses which persistently 
invade private rights and attack public privileges prevail to 
an alarming extent, and always have prevailed. 

Self-interest is the worst abuse of a well-regulated social 
order, because it converts the opportunities for service to 
society into chances for service to self. It prevents a will- 
ingness to relinquish and sacrifice some things which are of 
advantage to the individual, for the general interest. It 
makes personal advantage paramount to the general welfare ; 
and in so doing it subverts the exercise of the purest 
motives and most patriotic virtues, thereby making impos- 
sible the best condition of society, and consequently 
obstructing the ways of happiness, the very thing desired. 
It prevents a well ordered subordination of the personal to 
the general good, which permits the common good of the 
community to have only an accidental care, exposing it 
to every chance error and vice. It exposes the common 
interest to another danger. The development of society 
depends upon self-development. If the individual character 
be developed in self-interest, it follows that a long list of 
ill-fated elements will work into his nature. Greed, pernuri- 

37 



28 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

ousness, hard-heartedness and envy will produce a pernicious 
effect upon his individuality, which will entail a like vice 
upon society. The relation between the member and the 
community is reciprocal, so also is the action of the indi- 
vidual upon the general, and self-interest in the individual 
will soon find additional reason for continuing so in the 
treatment he receives from society. Self-interest here cre- 
ates a sphere of influence that is practically unbounded, 
and its evils run as far as its influence. It is a personal 
fault, that in society becomes a vice and crime. The lower 
and more loose the social order, the greater this is notice- 
able. It is the most observant in the savage. 

Service to any being or object we love, is the fruit of 
that love. Love begets service ; we serve because we love. 
Service also engenders love ; the being long and well served 
is loved in like proportion. The person who in self-interest 
lives for himself and consults only his personal welfare in all 
the affairs of life, and is utterly- unconcerned for the well- 
being of society, soon and readily falls into a love for 
himself. Self-love is an abuse produced by, as well as pro- 
ducing, self-interest. It is the idol of selfishness. To be 
able to appreciate one's own merits and place a legitimate 
value upon them is morally right and socially equitable, but 
to raise them into objects for self-worship lowers personal 
merit to the mere sycophancy of vanity. It unmans social 
manliness and disqualifies for social progress or reform. 
Self-love is one of the disintegrating forces in society which 
prevents unity of spirit, or purpose, in any movement for 
the common weal. In no two persons can it prompt to 
identical thought or action, as self-interest, which is its 
ground, is not only opposite in different trades and callings, 
but in different classes and even persons. One of its griev- 
ous faults is, that it is independent of duty and cannot be 
touched by responsibility. It is blind to all the paramount 
relations in the social sphere, and seems utterly unconcerned 
as to the elevation or decline of society, so it may thrive 
unhurt upon its own self-consideration. It reduces to a 



ABUSES OF THE SOCIAL ORDER. 29 

condition of secondary importance all public affairs and 
elevates to prime significance the unimportant matters of 
the individual. Though a quality only possible in an intel- 
ligent creature, it is a brute passion. Where it is raised to 
the maximum, social anarchy is the result. 

Of all the abuses growing out of wrong opinions and 
theories of social order no one is more disastrous to society 
or vitiating to the individual than that of free-love. It entails 
every horror and engenders every vice current where moral- 
ity is not looked upon as a virtue, and where purity and 
licentiousness are distinctions made only in name. It is 
the firstborn of self-love, which, rejecting all sense of duty 
and right but its own standard of self-interest, puts neither 
bridle nor bit on passion or appetite. It rejects alike the 
legality and divinity of the marriage relation, invades with 
careless step the domestic circle, and, treating affection with 
positive contempt, it sees no difference between virtue and 
sin. With this a leading trait, there can be no progress, 
civilization, or perfection in society. Organized beings are 
low in the scale of chastity and refinement in proportion as 
free love is dominant. The free-love notion teaches that 
the individual has the right to act in the love relation at 
his or her own cost and risk, without any of the restraints 
thrown around society by the tested wisdom of the past; 
it makes no provision against inconstancy and abandonment, 
but, going back to the methods of barbarism, it makes 
women the helpless victims of man's selfishness; it ignores 
duty to childhood, and in this is a crime against helpless 
^innocence; in essence free-love is free lust, in one result it 
is sure to be free hate. The only wise freedom in the love 
relation is self-government. Nobody in the social order is 
free to violate her laws, because violence destroys freedom. 
Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, defines virtue as that strength 
and manliness of soul which has conquered evil and which 
does right from deliberative choice. Like the ray of starlight 
that vibrates across the depth of space, and brings us knowl- 
edge from some far-off luminary millions of miles away, so 



30 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the words of Philo have pulsated across the gulf of eighteen 
centuries of time ; and they say to us in the tones of an 
immortal voice: "The virtuous alone are free." 

Communism is a consequence of free-love, and is an 
abuse of the equality privilege in the social arrangement. 
Starting with the attempt to overthrow the institution of 
private property and arrange for all to share alike in prop- 
erty, it runs to the consequent extreme of carrying the 
theory of equal and common possession to all the affairs 
of society. In domestic matters it entirely suspends indi- 
vidual liberty, and the smallest details of the daily life are 
regulated without any attention to either the comforts or 
the desires of those most concerned. An authority which 
decides at what hour its subjects shall retire at night and 
rise in the morning; which prescribes the color, shape and 
material of the dresses worn; the time of meals and the 
quality of food ; the daily tasks apportioned to each mem- 
ber; which enforces a rule that each member shall post a' 
notice stating where he or she will be each hour during the 
day; which determines that all amusements, comforts, vir- 
tues and indulgences, as well as all property, are common 
to all — a theory which can do all these things is one which 
certainly has subverted all rights in society to a low and 
brutal sub-barbarism which entitles it to the hatred of all 
who have at heart the best interests of society. 

The caste spirit in society is an abuse of the family circle 
extended to trade clubs and labor divisions. It breaks 
society up into classes and social tribes, originating in prej- 
udice against color, servitude, or social distinctions. Its 
function appears to be to engender strife and bickering, and 
set persons of one caste or guild against another, where 
envy and small jealousies create a vast amount of social 
disturbance. Whether it be the native religious-caste spirit 
of India or the race prejudice shown in America against the 
Chinese, it is a spirit wholly foreign to a normal condition 
of the social life. The spirit of caste is incompetent to 
measure matters of importance to the general good, and is 



RESTRICTIVE LAWS IN SOCIETY. 3 1 

set most bitterly against any class or movement which may 
arouse its prejudice. This finds a painful illustration in the 
dealing of this nation with the Chinese. There was a time 
when American industry almost fell on its knees before 
China, and prayed for thousands of workmen to come from 
the Orient and help develop the resources of the great West. 
They came, a few hundred thousand strong. In a short 
time American industries were developed five hundred per 
cent ; and as a consequence of the treaty, which grew out 
of the inducernents to Chinese immigration, a valuable com- 
merce was opened up with China. Notwithstanding this 
able showing, an American congress, under a narrow caste 
prejudice, was worked up where it could say: ''We must 
draw the line somewhere, you know," and the treaty that 
was thought sacred, and the compact that was thought to 
savor of the generous spirit of an improved social order, 
had to go. 

As the organization of society rests upon law and order, 
and as it has its right to exist inherent in itself from God, 
it has the right to regulate itself by restrictive laws. Lib- 
erty and restrictive law are bound together. A person enjoys 
liberty when he says and acts as he may please, and yet not 
as to injure other persons. If every human being were 
endowed with infallible judgment as to the effect of his 
acts on others, and had strength of purpose to avoid every- 
thing that could injure his fellowmen, restrictive laws would 
be needless. But as man's jucdgment is fallible, and his 
spirit of greed and self-interest often encroaches on the 
rights of others, it has always been considered necessary to 
have laws declaring what shall be held wrong and injurious, 
and to declare penalties for such injurious acts. 

Men must be regulated by laws of restraint. The abuses 
of society can only be reduced to a minimum and held under 
control by wise restrictions. Most, if not quite all, the 
reforms of society are only possible when expressed in laws 
of curtailing poAver, and of judicious infliction of punish- 
ment for crime against the social order. These laws of 



32 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIP^E. 

limitation should not interfere with rights or privileges, but 
simply act as forces of restraint on the evil propensities of 
society. These laws should be few in number and simple 
in structure; they should never interfere with the liberty 
of men to move about peaceably from place to place ; to 
discuss freely public affairs and questions of public interest ; 
to engage in any honest occupation they may please ; to 
produce by labor and skill whatever seems to them most 
suitable; and to exchange what they have produced for 
what they please and where they please. The laws of 
restraint should themselves be limited in power, else there 
would be produced a despotic condition of government. 

Such is the reckless disregard for duty among some per- 
sons that restrictive laws are one of the first necessities 
which society feels. Crimes will be committed, laws will 
be violated, and feelings of anger and revenge will be the 
consequence; which would turn the administration of 
justice into the administration of revenge were it not for 
restraining laws. 

A healthy condition of society can only be found where 
simple but well-timed restrictive laws hold vice and crime in 
check, and thereby serves the cause of justice and contributes 
to those solid, positive virtues upon which depends the hap- 
piness of mankind. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GOVERNMENT. 

THE necessity for laws and the need for order in the 
social arrangement presuppose a governing power, the 
duty of which should be to execute laws and preserve order. 
Government, far from being a necessary evil, as Paine 
thought, is a benefice ; in the progress of the race in all the 
arts, the moral uplifting of humanity in education and 
national harmony, and in the material growth of the people, 
it could not be dispensed with without subverting all the 
forces upon which, when united, depend the advancement 
of mankind. We will define government to be the ruling 
power in society. As it is the source of all law and authority 
in the social order, this definition will cover the use of the 
term as it is used in this work. 

A question of considerable interest would be. What is 
the origin of government? To answer this question, a vast 
research would have to be made ; indeed it is doubtful if it 
could be answered satisfactorily to a majority of intelligent 
minds. The answers which have most nearly satisfied are 
three. The first would express the opinion that government 
owes its existence in each of the earlier nations to the energy 
and mind of a single lawgiver. This view is formed upon 
legendary and mythological accounts. According to this 
theory the Spartan government was the invention of Lycur- 
gus. This ancient lawgiver visited many foreign lands and 
studied plans to effect a remedy for the evils of Sparta. He 
made devout pilgrimages to Crete and studied the laws of 
Minos, and to the Egyptian priests and Brahmin leaders of 
India ; then returned to establish, on an immutable basis, 
laws relative to civil and military affairs, property, com- 
merce, education and domestic life. The Athenian govern- 

3 33 



34 THE SCiE^XE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

ment is attributed to Solon, who, after half a life of study, 
perfected a plan for a half republic rule for Athens. Moses 
and Numa, according to the same theory, gave government 
to their respective countries. 

It is quite true to say that these benevolent founders of 
the commonwealth gave distinct forms of government ; but it 
is far from correct to assume that they originated govern- 
ment for their people. We know that Sparta had a form of 
government, though inferior, prior to Lycurgus; for his 
study of other governments was prosecuted during a volun- 
tary exile, undertaken to avoid conflict with a nephew who 
was prince of the realm. The Athenian government before 
Solon's wise legislation does not have the contempt of 
scholars even to-day. Both Israel and Rome had low forms 
of government before they fell to the royal leadership of 
Moses and Numa. These men did not originate govern- 
ment, though tradition puts them as the first source of 
settled laws for the respective tribes to which they belonged. 
No more than this can be claimed for the nations of Confu- 
cius and Zoroaster, even in moral government. The plodding 
pilgrim through history who has respect for the teaching of 
fact, will not hurriedly accept the theory of the origin of 
government which attributes it to single human lawgivers. 

A second attempt to account for the origin of govern- 
ment is on the theory of agreement. Society without any 
organized government resolves itself into a number of individ- 
uals, each following his own aims, and acting without respect 
to the aims of any other ; as the aims of one would conflict 
with the aims of others, strife is the result. To avoid this 
strife and preserve peace, men agree to establish certain 
laws. This supposition leads to very diiTerent views as to 
the cause of the attempt to establish these laws. With 
Hobbes it is a condition of war, and government is the 
result of an agreement among men to keep the peace. With 
Locke it is a state of liberty and equality. Though men are 
all free to do as they please, they are equal in that freedom ; 
and government is the effect of the voluntary agreement of 



DIFFERENT THEORIES OF GOVERNMENT. 35 

individuals to surrender a part of their individual liberty and 
submit themselves to one supreme government for the good 
of all. Locke says : " Men being by nature all free, equal 
and independent, the only way whereby anyone divests him- 
self of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil 
society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into 
a community." This is the social compact theory, and its 
heavy fault is that it presupposes a condition of the race 
which was naturally without government or society. 

A third theory for the origin of government may be called 
the logical account. This view contains no reference to any 
particular form of government. It aims to give a reply to the 
question. How did government in general come into exist- 
ence? and it answers it by a logical analysis of the elements 
of society. The original basis of government is also the 
basis of society ; the civil laws find their reason in the social 
laws ; the principles of government depend on the afifinities 
of society. A historical study of government will reveal 
this as the most plausible view to be taken. The very 
needs of society produced the necessity for civil authority 
to bind the divergent' forces and harmonize the discordant 
elements among men. Variety had to be reduced to unity, 
else civilization would be impossible ; out of this unity of the 
many and varied elements of primitive society was produced 
the strength which impelled the race to advance. This early 
and rude state of society holding each man to be free, nat- 
urally felt the need for some power to check the passions of 
those vi^ho would infringe on the rights of others. When 
the necessity for a ruling authority was felt the family easily 
suggested a hint for some head power that could issue com- 
mands and enforce obedience to those commands. Later 
investigations have shown the importance of the family in 
primitive society, and the belief in family descent is fully 
established. The government of a tribe resembled the gov- 
ernment of the household ; only the head of a family could 
be ruler of a tribe. 

But it is very doubtful if there can be expressed a formula 



36 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

for a law by which government is born. To discover a plain 
origin of government would be a dif^cult task. 

All that can be done is to trace governmental forms 
through various conditions and states of social development. 
Primitive society exhibits the germs of government ; to get 
a true historic idea of government it is helpful to trace from 
this primitive condition of society these germs through 
many stages of growth up to the most practical and best 
form of modern government. 

The original form of government was the monarchical. In 
its embryo state, very limited in extent, it consisted in a 
mere chieftaincy over a small tribe or clan which prevailed 
in the early condition of society. Such a chief was always 
the head of a family. In this form men were mostly hunt- 
ers. And so long as they remained in the hunter state 
there was no enlargement of this embryo monarchy beyond 
a recognition of the superior authority of some chieftain, 
which he, more than oJ-dinarily energetic, may obtain from a 
number of clans in the same vicinity and unite into a con- 
federacy of which he is considered head. Such was the con- 
dition of the aboriginal tribes of America whose largest 
tribes hardly embraced more than three or four thousand 
persons, and whose most powerful confederacies formed for 
mutual protection in wars against distant clans, though 
often occupying immense territories, did not reach over 
thirty thousand. 

On those broad steppes, savannas and prairies, which 
compose a considerable portion of the surface of the globe, 
where the small supply of wild game afforded insuf^cient 
food, men were driven ; or, finding it more convenient, were 
led to the breeding of animals capable of being domesti- 
cated. Changed from hunters to shepherds these tribes 
became masters of large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, horses 
and camels. These animals, domesticated and appropriated, 
constituted wealth, a thing unknown in a savage state, and 
an important element in the life of any nation. In this state 
the authority of the chieftain not only had to do with the 



CHANGE FROM PASTORAL TO AGRICULTURAL LIFE. 37 

actions of men, but with the control of property, and is the 
germ of slavery. A chieftain having large herds would 
secure the time of some less favored person to watch them, 
and from the control of the time it was an easy step to the 
control of the person of the servant. 

The shepherd father possesses in his flocks and herds 
and in his right of regulating the distribution of them among 
his children during his life, or at his death, a new means of 
controlling their actions and of keeping them obedient to 
him. He also has the means, which the hunter father has 
not, of employing the services of his children in a manner 
profitable to himself. He becomes a master as well as father. 

With the accumulation of wealth and the desire to 
increase in wealth, labor acquires an exchangeable value. 
The prisoners taken in war are now enslaved, and as such 
have a commercial value. Domestic slavery here instituted 
was at first mild. 

The accumulation of wealth in herds and slaves tends to 
increase the power of the father as head of the family, also 
as chieftain of the tribe. The accumulation of wealth cre- 
ates occasion and gives opportunity for the exercise of 
authority as well in peace as in war, and he who was first 
leader only in war by virtue of being chieftain of a tribe, in 
peace becomes judge and arbiter for the settlement of dis- 
putes and executioner in the punishment of criminals ; a per- 
manent and regularly organized form of government has its 
establishment. In a pastoral state man has advantages over 
the hunter state, but falls far below the agricultural state. 

The step from shepherd life to agricultural was not hard. 
When any of the shepherd tribes, either from necessity for 
food or desire for commerce, found it expedient to engage 
in agriculture, the labor was principally done by slaves. 
From the early morning of history until recently the soil of 
Europe has been cultivated almost entirely by slaves or serfs. 

In the development of agriculture the desire to hold 
property in land is early felt. This increases the power and 
influence of the chieftain to such a degree that from his 



38 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

authority there is no appeal when he becomes virtually a 
king, and monarchy takes on its complete form. 

After wealth begins to be accumulated {n the shape of 
flocks, herds, slaves and lands, war opens a constant means 
for the arbitrary growth of a tribe; in this work of plunder 
the king has depotic power, and the conquered tribes are 
mostly reduced to slavery. 

These agricultural tribes in turn sometimes fall into the 
hands of shepherd conquerors, and it frequently happens 
that amid the quarrels of contending dynasties, and the dis- 
order and insecurity which these barbarian conquerors bring 
with them, that wealth, civilization and population gradually 
decline and agriculture is abandoned. This happened to the 
western part of the old Roman empire, where the shepherd 
tribes from Germany and Sarmatia made repeated invasions 
and conquests. 

Different forms of secondary monarchy sometimes grew 
out of the kingcraft of absolute monarchy. When, in the 
course of its wanderings, one of these pastoral tribes becomes 
possessed of a mountainous and defensible country where, 
by the advantage of its surroundings, it is able to maintain 
itself against great numbers, and where the fertility of the 
soil, mildness of the climate and a maritime position favora- 
ble to commerce afford means for civilization, a new move- 
ment in political thought is observable. Naturally encour- 
aged in civilization and becoming more enlightened the 
spirit of freedom and feeling of equality work like a leaven 
among the members of a tribe against the unlimited 
authority of the king. If the line of direct descent in the 
families of chieftain or king comes to an end, and if there 
be no one person upon whom position, tradition or heroic 
distinction unite to confer the successorship, the government 
falls into the hands of a number of persons. This new form 
of the monarchy in later Grecian history became known as the 
oligarchy; a government by a few. When these few ruling 
families having full control, not only of the tribe but of the 
disposal of the government, from reasons of social distinc- 



THE CAUSE OF SECONDARY MONARCHY. 39 

tions or friendly favors admit other families which have 
acquired wealth and influence to share the power with them, 
the aristocracy is produced, which literally means a govern- 
ment of the best. And best either in point of birth or 
wealth. In fact this is theoretically at least the most 
unrighteous form of the ancient monarchy, as neither birth 
nor wealth has merit. 

When this aristocracy or government of the well-born 
and wealthy is so extended as to admit all the free citizens 
to share in the administration of the government, it is known 
as a democracy. But the ancient democracy included only 
a favored few of the more influential citizens, as it excluded 
not only slaves, but freedmen who had been slaves, strangers 
and mere denizens. 

It would sometimes occur that some individual citizen of 
great wealth, warlike skill, sagacity or eloquence in pleading 
before the people, was able to secure such an influence over 
the people as to centralize the whole administration of the 
government in his hands. 

This would restore a hateful monarchy, equally opposed 
to the oligarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Usurpation and 
violence had to be resorted to to produce it, hence it was 
known as tyranny. Dionysius of Syracuse was one of the 
noted tyrants of ancient times. 

In the run of political events it frequently happened that 
the oligarchy and aristocracy and democracy had each its 
advocates and adherents ; this gave rise to broils and party 
discord which often called out armed men to decide which 
should prevail. Sometimes the military itself became infatu- 
ated with the current ambition for power, and would over- 
ride the civic authority and usurp the government. The 
Greek kingdoms from the days of Alexander for several cen- 
turies furnish an example of this military tyranny, which is 
frequently denominated secondary monarchy. 

The different forms of the government of early Rome 
were like those of early Greece: from monarchy to an 
oligarchy of patrician families; from oligarchy to aristoc- 



40 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

racy, into which the plebeians were at first admitted, but 
which gradually expanded into a republic, then back to an 
oligarchy of a few powerful persons ; from this new oligarchy 
to tyranny, which slowly changed into secondary monarchy. 
With the establishment and spread of the Christian church 
through Rome a new line of influence is traceable in the 
character of the empire. And when this hitherto unfelt 
power was found to be too potent to be resisted it was 
availed for the support of the empire, and under Constan- 
tine was adopted as a state religion. From thence on the 
Christian religion must be regarded as a clear, strong element 
in European politics. Prior to this, mysticism, mythological 
teaching and augury effected somewhat the respect for gov- 
ernment, but had not much to do with tangible changes 
in the form of government. The teaching of the Christian 
religion so greatly changed the whole current of human 
thought that government itself was vastly leavened by it. 

Many steps were required to change any or all of the 
ancient forms of government, either monarchy or aristocracy 
into representative government. It required centuries of 
time, revolutions in thought, great development in art and 
science, wide spread commerce through which means the 
views of one people were carried to another, and a general 
diffusion of knowledge and intellectual elevation of the 
masses before representative government was practicable or 
even possible. The lesson of just government, showing 
equal chances and bestowing equal rights upon all citizens, 
independent of wealth, birth or class distinction, is a lesson 
hard to learn. Not only does truth have to be prepared for 
nations, but nations qualified to receive the truth. It comes 
first as a prophecy or promise; then revealed as an expecta- 
tion; then taught as a political philosophy; then proclaimed 
as a doctrine, and after slow and tortuous persuasion is 
accepted. The race moves slow in the reform of law, as in 
other movements of civilization. After it grows weary from 
the oppression lashed upon it by the taskmaster of tyranny; 
learns that the weakness of the tribe was the sure pledge for 



THE ENGLISH SYSTEM. 4I 

its slavery; how political misfortune led to political bondage ; 
only when it was felt that the government of monarchy 
was operated by the few and for the few, and it was dis- 
covered that government could be broadened out to wield its 
healthy protection over all, only then was the republic ready 
to be born. 

In the free republic where the will of the people should 
be the voice of the government the parliament and cabinet 
are the real powers of the government. In the English sys- 
tems, which in fact under the high demand of an enlightened 
people is a representative republic, but in form is a limited 
monarchy with a tendency of the legislative will to revert 
back to original monarchy in this system, the two cham- 
bers of parliament are the house of lords and the house of 
commons. 

The real sovereignty lies with the house of commons 
which is the only safeguard for the people against the mon- 
archical will of the upper house, or the throne. It is only in 
legislation that the house of commons shares its power with 
the house of lords. The constitution is on the side of the 
lower house and possesses almost unlimited power in making 
nominations, and is a balancing power in case the house of 
lords refuses important measures demanded, by the people's 
representatives. In the American system the parliament 
rests in the house of representatives and the senate, of 
which the latter body is the more important in all matters 
of general legislation, as well as in its control over and 
sanction with the executive. In the English system the 
actual strength of popular government lies in the ultimate 
supremacy of the house of commons. In the American, in 
the unselfish wisdom and accurate judgment of the senate. 
A peculiar feature of the English system is the cabinet. It 
is not merely a body of the chiefs of the different depart- 
ments. It is the inner council of the empire, shaping the 
national policy, foreign and domestic, controlling the finance 
and holding general supervision over all the affairs of the 
commonwealth. The actual power of the house gf commons 



42 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE 

is resting- in it, yet it has no recognition whatever in the 
constitution. It has no constitution of itself, fixing its num- 
ber or shaping its work ; nor does it keep any record of its 
proceedings. It is a secr^, private body with the premier 
at its head, and is of doubtful utility. A power behind the 
throne, it is questionable if it could exist only where a 
worthless conservatism lends favor to things simply because 
they savor of antiquity. In the American system the cabi- 
net is only a council of the heads of departments for 
advisory purposes gathered around the chief of the nation. 
Without any authority but that of council, and being sub- 
ject to the opinion of its leader, it conserves the interests of 
the nation by representing to the head of the nation the 
condition of affairs in all the principal departments. 

From the foregoing analysis of the forms of government, 
it may not be difficult to reduce all forms to three sim- 
ple conditions: The monarchy, the aristocracy and the 
democracy, or republic. There are three ways in which 
nations can be governed by one man (monarchy) ; or by a 
few (aristocracy) ; or by a representative many choosen by 
the people (republic). Each of these three leading types 
exhibits a number of branch forms produced by conditions 
of location, climate, society and commerce. The best gov- 
ernment is one in which much is left to the law and little 
to the will of the executor of the law. 

We may now consider the design of governmet. What 
is the purpose and mission of government, is a question of 
no less interest than importance to all who would entertain 
right notions of the powers and limitations of the state. 
The mission of government is of high order. It is no polit- 
ical expediency, created to establish offices and furnish 
employment for the mercenary or provide a field of action 
for the aspiring. Its end is man's temporal interest. In a 
high sense it is God's appointed power for the education, 
instruction, moral culture and perfection of the human soul. 
Truth is the agent for man's liberation' from sin and evil. 
Government has a great part to act in this elevation and 



THE DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT. 43 

purification; its aim to be right must be in this direction ; 
its mission should be guided and shaped so as to bear 
onward and co-operate in this holy work. The mere accu- 
mulation of wealth should not be a part of the mission of 
government. It should look mainly to material progress, 
the progress which works the conquest of labor, which ena- 
bles labor to economize its time, to save time for mental and 
moral progress. It should be a benefactor to inventive 
genius. Men laboring in invention, discovery or science 
should be encouraged, assisted and rewarded. These are the 
men, who, under God, are struggling at the means by which 
human labor is to be economized and material production 
increased, until the whole race shall have acquired sufificient 
leisure for its highest intellectual and moral culture. This 
is a high interpretation of the mission of statecraft, but it 
is the true one. It would, in this, be meeting its duty 
toward material interests ; it would be laboring for progress, 
working to save work, aiming to produce day by day the 
same material results by a less amount of time and labor, 
whereby the people would become better sheltered, better 
clothed and fed, while more and more time would be left 
free to use for intellectual and moral education. In this 
way government would ever hold up to view the paramount 
value and importance of the intellectual over the material, 
and elevate the moral in public opinion as the final end of 
all labor, until man should regard the object of his business 
as having a higher aim than the mere enlargement of the 
magnitude of commerce and the accumulation of wealth. 

It should, from its high position and by its potential 
influence, teach people wisdom, and rightly guide the mate- 
rial interests so as best to subserve the welfare of society. 
It should protect public virtue and private integrity, and 
support all movements and institutions contributing to these 
essential graces. Among these institutions, powerful in 
influence for weal or woe upon public morals, is the family. 
Government should protect this relation, and throw around 
it the environments of sanctity and honor. Happy homes 



44 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

are the earnest of pure society, and this the assurance for a 
contented people. The family receives every human life on 
its entrance into this world, and in the family every human 
being receives its earliest teachings and impressions ; there 
receives a bias or bent which no after influence can wholly 
eradicate ; there character, good or bad, is largely determined 
for the whole earthly career, so that the virtue or vice of 
public morals have their germs started in the family. The 
state should then watch over the family as the foundation of 
national prosperity and happiness. 

Here, then, lies the mission of statecraft: to keep the 
peace, and enforce order by holding in check all disposed to 
violate law and disturb order. It lays its hands on the 
wicked, the evil, the criminal, while it lends its vast influ- 
ence, and applies its large income to the material, intellect- 
ual and moral progress of the nation. Looked upon in this 
light, government is something exalted and noble. 

Besides this domestic mission, government has foreign 
relations. The character of the nation, here, should be of 
the highest order, never marred by low and dishonest deal- 
ings, or by force wielded for the promotion of injustice. It 
should in its dealings with other nations utter only language 
and propose measures of truth and honor. National life 
thus pure will ever be dear to her patriot citizens, who will 
be proud of her name on other shores and distant lands, for 
they will be proud of its unsullied fame to overshadow and 
protect wherever its citizens may roam. 

To effect this mission of national life there must be at 
its head men of broad intelligence, large experience, tried 
integrity, and unsullied and known character; who are led 
by no mean and selfish ambition, but inspired with love for 
the right, the true and the good ; who loathe cunning, and 
meanness, and injustice, whether in the conduct of indi- 
viduals or the action of government. National life, to stand 
out in all its relations as consecrated to loyalty, truth and 
justice, must exercise its functions through the loyal, the 
true and the just; for such only will preserve their own and 



THE THREE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 45 

their country's honor, keeping it in a condition where it will 
hold the respect of the foreigner as well as the love of the 
citizen. Then the weak shall be safe under the shadow 
of its power and the strong shall confide in its honor and 
justice. 

In any form of national life the functions of government 
are exercised in three different ways : the law is to be made ; 
the violation of the law is to be determined ; and the penal- 
ties attached thereto are to be enforced. The powers of 
government have to do with legislation, judicature and 
administration. In the monarchy the despot makes the 
laws, decides their violation, and orders their execution 
In a better state of the social order national life takes on 
a higher form, and these three functions of government are 
kept entirely separate. In no case have a body of men who 
make laws anything to do with pronouncing penalties under 
those laws, or of administering those penalties, and in this 
way a higher sense of justice is maintained. 

The first function of government is to make law. Law 
is a rule of action by which men are to act. We have 
noticed how humanity is subject to the arrangement of 
the social order; that government is the outgrowth of this 
social order, hence law must conform to the nature of man 
in demanding man to obey it. In making law the first 
respect of the legislative power should be to reverence the 
natural rights of men. Without this legislation becomes 
tyranny, and government violates its very right to exist. 
National life cannot claim the right to enforce obedience to 
the law of private property until it first exercises its right 
of legislation by declaring the existence of the law making 
the possession of property a private right. 

The judicature of government declares the rightness of 
law and the guilt of its violation. When the legislature has 
declared laws, rights become vested and wrongs will prevail. 
When legal rights have been violated the wronged are 
entitled to redress; always entitled to have the wrong 
righted. This redress involves the inquiry: first, what are 



46 THE SCIENCE i)F NATIONAL LIFE. 

the facts in the case? secondly, what consequence does the 
law attach to these facts ? To make this investigation and 
declare the law upon the case constitute proper judicial 
action, and national life provides for the exercise of this 
power, in free government by the judicial department of 
the administration of justice. Without this judicial func- 
tion of justice in some form the law would be powerless, 
wrongs would not be redressed, and rights would go unre- 
spected. It is by the instrumentality of the judicature that 
a peaceable remedy is found for the righting of all wrongs, 
and it is an immense consideration in government. 

The next classification of power is the executive. Laws 
must not only be made, their violation determined and the 
right under them declared, but they must be executed by 
adjudging compensation and enforcing penalties. Without 
the laws are executed anarchy will prevail, and revolution 
will vie with mobism to degrade all government. It is the 
duty of the executive to see justice and right enforced 
between man and man. The judicature determines what 
these rights are, and the executive must see that they are 
carried into effect. Another duty of the executive function 
is to enforce such laws as look to the support of the gov- 
ernment itself ; laws which affect neither citizen with citizen, 
nor citizen with state, but which have reference to the 
machinery of the national life. Such are all revenue laws; 
laws providing for the sustenance of public institutions, 
construction of roads, and in all cases where public money 
is to be expended. Yet another duty of the executive is to 
represent the government in its foreign relations. There are 
rights and wrongs between nations which bring up a con- 
stant need for national action, and which belong to the 
executive. 

Government falls naturally into these three departments. 
In rudely organized society the chieftain assumes all these 
functions ; he gives orders, which are laws ; he enforces these 
orders, and he sits in judgment in disputes among his sub- 
jects. In order to maintain a free and popular form, of 



A WISE ARRANGEMENT. 47 

national life it is important that these powers shall be 
lodged in different hands; that the body which makes 
the laws shall have nothing to do with their enforcement, 
and that the judicial shall be a body distinct from both 
the legislative and executive branches of the government. 
Where this division of powers is well established and care- 
fully guarded, and there be intelligence and virtue among 
the people to respect the rights of each, the liberties and 
rights of the people are secure, and tranquility and pros- 
perity will continue to abide with the nation. 



CHAPTER V. 

SPECIAL MOVEMENTS AFFECTING NATIONAL LIFE. 

TO rightly apprehend the formation and character of 
modern national life it is necessary to make a short 
study of some leading movements and agencies which have 
now and then worked powerfully on society; which vastly 
changed the thought of the age, and which colored all 
government since. The philosophy of government cannot 
be understood without understanding these movements in 
society and morals, and which seem to have been God's 
supremacy of control over the ways and affairs of nations. 

The first of these special forces that we notice as wield- 
ing a powerful influence on the national life of the middle 
ages, and the ultimate effect of which is not yet, is the rise 
of the power of the clergy. The obscure rise of Christianity 
among the hills of Palestine during the first century and a 
half of our era ; the heavy persecution to which it submitted ; 
the sore struggle against immense difficulties which seemed 
to combine to crush the new teaching ; the gradual rise over 
armies and empires, at last subduing all the western world to 
its views, and this under the teaching of the clergy, furnishes 
one of the many astonishing revolutions of thought to be 
traced through the centuries. The clergy of this Christian 
faith, which pretended to leaven all life, domestic, social and 
political, by the very force of their energy, aggressiveness 
and belief in divine succor, had, by the end of the fourth 
century, acquired social recognition, literary influence and 
political power to an extent that made them henceforth a 
known factor in civilization. The successive hordes of bar- 
barians which overran Europe were, at first, all pagan, except 
the Saracens, and began by plundering and murdering the 
clergy, but always ended by being converted and baptized, 

48 



RISE OF FEUDALISM. 49 

and in turn to exert their Christian influence upon other 
barbarous tribes. At the opening of the fifth century the 
clergy had both the power and the opportunity to effect the 
poHtical regeneration of the world. The laws were made, 
offenses under them considered and acted upon, and they 
were executed in accordance with the wish of these church 
leaders. Following the flag of the army was the banner of 
the cross; the teacher of science was the preacher of the 
gospel, and by the ruler on the throne was the priest of the 
temple. No enterprise could be undertaken, no movement 
pushed to its finale without the sympathy of the clergy. 
Their views upon social and state questions, as well as the- 
ological, were the most dominant and mostly led the masses. 
Under their teaching the humane truths of liberty for all 
alike ; equal rights to all ; the faith that of one blood were 
all nations ; fraternity ; the wrong of treating slaves in any 
sense as lower than domestic servants ; the supremacy of the 
moral over the social order, were features which gradually 
became incorporated in government, and which must be 
attributed to the clergy. 

Feudalism was one of the strongest elements that ever 
affected European government. It was virtually the owner- 
ship of land in tenure from the lords, and requiring in return 
military service and defense of the lord's military rights 
even unto death. It became a great social organization, 
based on the ownership of land and personal relations grow- 
ing out of this landed privilege. During the ninth, tenth 
and eleventh centuries the arable lands of France, Italy and 
Germany were mostly held in feudal tenure. In the ninth 
century, when the Carlovingian dynasty was rapidly declin- 
ing, local chieftains had to bear the heaviest brunt of the 
invaders, whether Saracens or Northmen ; and these chief- 
tains, or leaders of small bands, soon learned to make wars 
and enter into terms of peace upon their own responsibility. 
The centralization of government was breaking and decen- 
tralization had set in, in which each local tribe had to look 
after its welfare and plan for its own defense. The chief- 
4 



50 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

tains divided their estates among their warriors upon a con- 
dition of military service. If several tribes were banded 
together for mutual protection, the great vassal, or tenant 
for a whole tribe, would each year kneel, and placing his 
hands between those of his lord, would vow to serve him 
with life, and in faithful and loyal devotion, in consideration 
of the lands conferred. Beneath these great princes, or 
lords, who held provinces directly from the king, were under- 
vassals, who in turn granted estates to smaller tenants, the 
whole system being intended to secure service in time of 
war; and as society depended upon vigorous defensive war, 
the under-vassals were as much concerned in preserving this 
system as the princes or lords. Originally the feudal grants 
of land were made only for a term of years, or during the 
lifetime of the vassal, but gradually they became hereditary. 
The serfs who cultivated the soil were given away with it,, 
and could claim nothing except protection for themselves 
and families and cattle in time of invasion. In this way- 
feudalism aided in the establishment of a hateful slavery, 
and succeeded in pushing its recognition into the European 
system of government. This is but one of the evils created 
in national life by the feudal system. It became an oppres- 
sive social tyranny; it had widened the distance between 
the vassals and serfs, which created caste sectionalisms in 
society. The head vassals gradually developed into a mili- 
tary aristocracy, very unjust and dangerous to the general 
welfare of society. 

With these evil effects many strong and good elements 
were born by the feudal system, which developed into such 
wonderful privileges that the very principles of sovereignty 
were forever crippled. It introduced reciprocal duties be- 
tween the vassal and his lord. The vassal was bound to 
give military service; the lord to defend the personal and 
property rights of the vassal. It did much to restore loy- 
alty, truth and fidelity among rude men and tribes, and in 
this promoted chivalry; it ennobled friendship, and spread 
the graces of gentleness and urbanity among rough men of 



BENEFITS OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 5 1 

war. It taught tribes the ease with which they could resist 
the invader by combining their tribal forces, and from this 
was learned the principle of strength through unity. Com- 
binations of masses took place ; free cities were established ; 
■free farmers were beginning to cultivate the soil, and political 
liberty was conceived as a practical thing, if not actually 
born. Among the many free privileges which grew out of 
the natural conditions of the feudal system were some of 
known value in making a review of the causes which led 
to the character of modern national life. The right of 
coining money without the stamp of royal authority was 
claimed and used by the vassals as early as the tenth cen- 
tury. This was a useful privilege in helping to establish 
the rightness of private liberty, but dangerous in jeopardiz- 
ing the finances of any country. France was nearly ruined 
by it. A second right granted and used during the age of 
feudalism was that of urging private war. The right to 
resist any invading enemy was considered sacred, and every 
man who owned a castle and had a body of retainers was 
at liberty to take the field against any injuring party. This 
did much to develop a sense of private justice between man 
and man, which is one of the safeguards of free government. 
Another right born in these feudal times was that of being 
free from all legislative control except in such things as 
were for the general good ; and yet another was the exclu- 
sive right of judicature which each vassal had in his domin- 
ion, except the mere matter of military service, where the 
will of the lord was supreme. These rights were too high 
for the period, and as a consequence they were all grossly 
abused ; yet they served a vast purpose in turning the mind 
to the higher and supreme rights of full equality, fraternity 
and national good-will. The strange and rapid growth of 
the feudal system, until it became the sole power in all 
South Europe, owes its existence to the invading hordes 
of the North and East, which overran the whole South and 
West and necessitated some mighty resistance in each sec- 
tion. To offer this resistance, feudalism was the best thing 



52 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

that grew out of the turbulent condition of affairs. It was 
the three hundred year struggle between monarchy and 
democracy to offer the best method for government. It 
was a long, selfish, and yet manly and noble, struggle ; and 
out of it came monarchy manacled and democracy self- 
equipped for growth and improvement. 

The crusades, undertaken for the overthrow of Turkish 
rule in the East and to preserve Jerusalem free as a pilgrim 
shrine for the Western Christian, resulted in the promise of 
modern civilization. The first leading cause which hurried 
on the crusade spirit was the conquest of the holy land of 
Palestine by the Turks, whose zeal in establishing the faith 
of Mohammed made them treat Christian pilgrims with 
ferocious cruelty. For a long while previous the feeling 
had been growing throughout Europe that there was spe- 
cial virtue in visiting the scenes of the life of Christ. The 
Christian converts were pagan worshipers at first, who 
believed in making pilgrimages to the temples where the 
gods were supposed to preside over sacrifice and worship. 
In becoming Christian the feeling was natural that a pil- 
grimage from the grotto of Bethlehem to the tomb of 
Aramathea would specially endow with the virtue of Christ, 
the divine head of the church. When the Turkish invader 
with his Islam faith, drove the Christian pilgrim from the 
Palestine plains, a storm of hot indignation broke over 
Europe, which was to burn for two centuries, and which 
was to absorb the whole attention of the world. In the 
latter part of the eleventh century seven thousand pilgrims 
were led by the Primate of Germany to brave the Turks of 
Jerusalem; but they were glad to return by a Genoese fleet. 
Hildebrand, with wonderful zeal, proposed to lead fifty 
thousand Christian soldiers to the relief of the resident 
Christians at Jerusalem, but he, too, failed. It was reserved 
for Peter the Hermit of Picardy, to effectually kindle the 
crusade spirit in such a strong manner that no power of 
state or church could quench it. He preached the duty of 
wrenching the Holy Land from the infidel Turk throughout 



THE BEGINNING OF THE CRUSADES. 53 

Italy, France and Germany, in streets, highways and churches ; 
in the palace and the cottage; the market place and on the 
hillside, and was everywhere received with rapture and 
enthusiasm. An immense mass meeting was held at Cler- 
mont, where an appeal was made to the chivalry of Europe 
to retake Jerusalem, the only bulwark of Christianity in 
Asia, from the infidel. The crowd responded with shouts 
of approval. Dieii le vent (God wills it) became the battle 
cry of the crusaders. Thousands of every rank and age 
placed the sword by their side and the red cross upon their 
shoulders, and vowed to gain the Holy Land to their zeal- 
ous faith. The mountains of Scotland, Wales, Norway and 
the land of the Swiss heard the summons, and answered it 
by sending forth swarms of Christian soldiery. Europe 
gave up the petty wars which had produced the feudalism ; 
nobles sold lands and castles, farmers their implements of 
husbandry; monks exchanged their convent for the open 
field ; serfs and slaves were freed on the mere condition of 
assuming the cross, and robbers, pirates and criminals of all 
classes were induced to fill the overflowing ranks in the 
belief that they could wash away their guilt in the blood of 
the infidels. 

Six millions of men, women and children took the cross 
and faced toward the land usurped by the hated Turk. The 
first start was made in August, 1096. Walter the Penniless 
and Peter the Hermit led an unorganized army of one hun- 
dred thousand men, followed by an irregular host of two 
hundred thousand more. Months later their bones were 
found bleaching on the borders of Hungary, and in a pyramid 
on the plains of Nice. In the late autumn the very chivalry 
of Lorraine and the flower of northeastei'n France were led 
by Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine. The 
Turks were defeated at Nice, the Turkish capital of Roum ; 
at Edessu, where the first Latin colony was founded, and at 
Antioch, where the Turks were almost annihilated. The 
eastern plague and summer heat devoured over one hundred 
thousand of the crusading army. In the early summertide 



54 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of 1099 the crusading host appeared before the Holy City. 
After three years of weary pilgrimage, famine, war and 
wasting disease, the first view of Jerusalem over the Pales- 
tine hills was hailed with shouts of joy. Eight hundred and 
fifty thousand had fallen by the way, and only forty thous- 
and pitched their tents on the north and west of the city. 
The forest of lichen thirty miles away furnished the wood 
for the assaulting engines. Forty days the siege went on, 
during which the besieging crusaders suffered for want of 
water. Gihon's brook and Kedron's branch were dry, and 
all the cisterns were broken by the stubborn Turks. At 
length, four hundred and sixty years after the Saracen con- 
quest the crusade standard was put on the walls of the city. 
Ten thousand Mohammedans were slain in the mosque of 
Omer. Then, washing their hands of the blood they had 
so mercilessly shed, they went in solemn procession to the 
tomb of Joseph's garden. One of the crusade leaders was 
left with a few hundred men to guard the Holy Land, and 
the remainder returned to the West. By this and succeed- 
ing conquests the Latin kingdom was extended east of the 
Euphrates and south to the borders of Egypt. French law, 
language, thought and customs prevailed over the land once 
reigned over by David and Solomon. 

When the capture of Jerusalem was told in Europe it 
electrified four hundred and twenty thousand more pilgrims, 
who set forth in iioi ; but nearly all fell in Asia Minor from 
plague, famine and the arrows of the Turks. In less then 
half a century later several crews combined to start for the 
East another crusade. The imperial eloquence of Bernard, 
the Abbot of Clairvaux aroused all ranks and classes to save 
the Holy Land from falling again into the hands of the in- 
fidels. Towns were now deserted, while communities were 
left desolate of industries, and in many places only women 
and children were left to cultivate the land. This fresh 
swarm of victims to religious frenzy gradually perished by 
the intrigue of the foe and the pestilence of this strange 
country. Bread sold to the hungry beings was mixed with 



THE CHILDREN S CRUSADE. 55 

chalk ; the guides, themselves bribed, led the crusaders into 
the desert to perish with hunger and thirst. The remnant 
wearily returned to Europe, and the second crusade ended a 
failure. Near the close of the twelfth century Jerusalem 
was retaken by the infidel Turk. This spread grief through- 
out Europe, and plans were soon concerted to start a third 
crusade. Through all Europe a one-tenth of all movable 
property was levied upon Jews and Christians for the 
expense of the wars. The only result of this attempt was to 
force the Saracens to guarantee safety to all Christians who 
wished to make a pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher. A 
fourth crusade was proclaimed in 1200 A. D., and a tax was 
imposed on the clergy to defray the burdensome expense of 
the expedition. The conquest of Constantinople was the 
only enterprise of note which occured during this crusade, 
and but very few of the deluded host ever reached Palestine, 

This fanatical spirit reached a climax in producing the 
children's crusade. From the towns and hamlets ninety 
thousand children assembled and led by a mere boy pushed 
their way as' far as Genoa, when they were perplexed by 
finding themselves confronting the sea ; some took ship only 
to fall into the hands of Moorish pirates, some were sold in 
slavery, and some perished from hunger or fatigue ; while it 
is not probable that one of the deluded host ever reached 
either Palestine or home. 

Several crusades followed in quick succession, until in all 
quite a dozen of these attempts to break the Turkish rule in 
Palestine had been made. The distress of the armies in the 
East was only excelled by the dessolation of the fields and 
the stagnation of industries at home. Business of all kinds 
was neglected, commerce was weakened, the consuming 
women and children left at home exceeded the producing 
population, and famine was the consequence. Complete 
panic, commercially and politically, threatened all Europe. 
These crusades closed in time to save the whole West from 
being depopulated. Though in the end the greater part of 
Palestine was surrendered to the Christians, the walls of 



56 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



\ 



Jerusalem were rebuilt, and the churches reconsecrated, 
these results alone would have poorly compensated for the 
extravagant sacrifice of life, property and vast commercial 
interests ; for the perpetuity of the Christian faith, and the 
stability of the Christian truth never depended upon 
Christian or Islam rule in the little and commercially insig- 
nificant country of Palestine. 

Though the immediate results of this crusading war 
against the East were wholly bad, yet the ultimate outcome 
was vastly for good. Close intercourse between the East and 
the West grew out of the crusades, and this was the opening 
of that long series of events and movements which have 
finally resulted in a somewhat settled system of international 
law, which is one of the chief glories of modern civilization. 
Eastern ideas and inventions were engrafted on the West, 
and eventually changed the whole current of European life. 
The narrow circle of European ideas was widened to embrace 
the art and language of Asia, and the two henceforth had to 
be neighbors, if they did refuse to be friends. Feudal prin- 
ciples were introduced in Jerusalem and Constantinople ; the 
power of the Turk was held in check if not broken, and the 
tide of Mohammedan conquests was turned back more than 
once, giving Europe time to prepare herself for the possible 
emergency of a general Turkish invasion over the whole 
West. These crusades doubtless saved the Italian, Teutonic, 
and possibly the Scandinavian, lands from Turkish tyranny, 
which had blasted the fairest lands of earth. They broke up 
the feudal systems for Europe, opened the way for an 
exchange of thought and manners ; the widening out of the 
spheres of learning, which had a wholesome result in a revival 
of letters, and finally in the religious revival which followed 
that revival. The breaking up of the feudal systems resulted 
in the abolition of serfdom, and the common object for all 
who participated in the crusades, whether bard, vassal or 
serf, did a great deal to overthrow that hateful caste charac- 
ter which grew out of the feudal order, and with the down- 



A NEW CIVILIZATION. 5/ 

fall of this was the growing supremacy of a common law 
over the independent jurisdiction of chiefs and vassals. 

The effect of all this on the national life of Europe was 
to make it more energetic, open the way for new and bene- 
ficial elements, create in the masses a desire for self govern- 
ment, and a general breaking down of old and hateful 
tyrannies. 

Several hundred years of bold adventure had made men 
daring in all kinds of enterprise, and the energy of the West 
seemed to have received a new impulse. A few bold 
thinkers had been making studies based on the spherical 
form of the globe ; movable type were first used in the 
fifteenth century, and did much in spreading inspiring books ; 
the polarity of the magnet, followed by the discovery of 
America; the new birth of fine art at Milan, Florence, 
Venice and Rome, where Angelo, Correggio and Raphael 
made such splendid creations in marble and on canvas as to 
arouse the intelligence of Europe from the work of war to 
the work of trade, discovery and science : the Flemish artists^ 
led by Rubens of Antwerp, being scarcely behind the Italian ; 
the radical change in domestic art, better houses and churches, 
improvement in mechanical and agricultural instruments; 
linen and woolen goods supplanting the coarse fabrics of the 
Middle Ages — these were rapid strides for a new civiliza- 
tion. In the more refined fields of thought the growth 
was rapid. Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Chaucer dis- 
played before the world such rare and rich genius, as to 
kindle a love for poetic literature, and did a great deal in the 
revival of learning and the admiration for the songs of love, 
romance, virtue and truth ; the generally diffused spirit of 
investigation that was inquisitive in all directions, and which 
was one result of the crusades ; the growing disposition with 
a few able scholars and reformers to ponder and reflect upon 
the higher duties of life and the moral side of man, the pro- 
found meditations on the existence of God, the nature of 
the mind, the faculties and future of the soul, — all these 
agencies and causes began to produce a strange ferment in. 



58 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

social, moral, intellectual and commercial Europe, which was 
the promise for a new life for the West ; these causes acted 
upon each other in various ways to make improvement the 
passion cry of the age. 

This spirit was rapidly giving birth to the most prominent 
event of modern times, and the most momentous in its 
results — the Reformation of the sixteenth century. It is 
connected directly with some of the higher rights and privi- 
leges of modern national life. It contributed to bring about 
the moral struggle of the Huguenots and Puritans against 
civil wrongs. It had much to do with the wider dilTusion 
of knowledge, and with the progress of civil and religious 
liberty in Europe. It is indeed the mainspring of modern 
civilization. It would be impossible to form an intelligent 
view of modern free government, without considering the 
Reformation as having a master hold in the equal rights and 
general intelligence which now belong to the masses. 

The general breaking up of old feudal laws and customs, 
and the new life infused by the crusades ; the luxury and 
corruption of the papal court, the notoriously evil lives of 
such popes as Sixtus IV. and Alexander VI., and the vices 
of the clergy; the wars of Julius II. and the bitter animosi- 
ties among the leaders of the Roman faith ; the wonderful 
spirit for research and the growing disgust for the old forms, 
and the prevailing desire for purer men and purer things: 
these were a few of the many causes which contributed to 
produce the most remarkable and far reaching reform 
which has ever worked its way into the settled convictions 
of the ages. If God works in history that event was 
heaven's greatest inspiration to earth, and the most magnifi- 
cent display of divine grace, giving power and direction to 
the movement, which is to be traced through the annals of 
the world. 

The suddenness of its action is one of the peculiar traits 
of the Reformation. The great revolutions which have 
drawn after them the fall of a monarchy or the change of 
an empire, or launched the business mind into a new career 



THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION. 59 

of development, have been slowly and gradually prepared ; 
the power to be displaced has long been studied and gradu- 
ally undermined, and its supports have given way almost 
imperceptibly. But nothing of this is seen in the Reforma- 
tion. The causes reached far back in the conditions of 
Europe, and in the unseen armory of the Diety were forged 
the instruments that were to hew down the moral evil of the 
age ; but in the opinion of men, and in the expectation of 
society, nothing could be more unexpected. It is true there 
was that general disquiet which in the philosophy of natural 
life is always indicative of coming revolution of some kind, 
but in the horoscope of the times there is discoverable no sign 
by which either scholars or the masses foresaw the radical and 
universal changes which should come in all channels of life. 
It came in all its terrible force like the mighty belching of a 
great moral Vesuvius, unexpected, almost unannounced. It 
was scarcely heard in the near distance, until it broke like a 
hidden cloud, lapping up papal chair and political throne in its 
seething waters. What do we see? The Church of Rome, 
in all its strength and glory, swaying its sceptre over empires 
and waving its pontifical cudgel over the heads of scholars 
in the universities ; its influence reaching over Europe, its 
power apparently as firm as the Alps barricaded with the 
eternal hills. A monk speaks, and in the half of Europe 
this power and glory suddenly crumbles into dust; and 
before the surprise is over, the religion and politics of 
Europe are revolutionized. 

Many circumstances which have frequently escaped obser- 
vation, gradually prepared men and nations for the great 
transformation of this amazing sixteenth century; so that,, 
though it was known not, the human mind was ripe when 
the hour of emancipation came. The mystery of all this is 
that, hidden in the movements of the hurnan mind, is ever 
the divine mind. The philosophy of the world's progress 
clearly shows that the guiding star of civilization is the 
simple but powerful truth — GOD IS IN HISTORY. On the 
wide stage on which men and nations meet and struggle, 



60 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

there is a concealed actor, masked behind the form of things, 
which is the power of God. So that the work of ages, 
instead of being a confusing chaos, is a splendid temple 
which the invisible builder of worlds erects above the 
changes of passing generations. 

Shall the arm of this unseen power not be acknowledged 
as guiding those great men and mighty nations which give 
a new hfe, a new form, a new destiny to human affairs? 
Shall we not acknowledge the divine influence in those great 
heroes, who spring up among men at special times of need 
or danger; who display activity and ability beyond the 
limits of human genius; around whom men and nations 
gather, as if to a superior person, for help and safety? 
Those revolutions and movements, which in their wild 
career precipitate nations and gigantic evils to the dust; 
those heaps of ruins with which we meet in the sands of the 
desert ; those strange remains piled along the buried path 
of the past, and coming to our reflection, like the wisdom of 
the sepulcher, all — all speak the truth that God is shaping 
the destiny of national as well as personal Hfe. Gibbon, 
seated on the ancient capital and contemplating its noble 
ruins, acknowledged the intervention of a superior destiny. 
This superior destiny has taken firm possession of the gates 
of nations, hovers over all the tribes of earth, and to which 
is indebted all those remarkable movements which tend 
toward, but often result so different from, what is expected 
of them in their incipiency. 

This law, of a higher than human force, is certainly recog- 
nizable in the Reformation. This is admirably expressed by 
Luther, the head figure of those times, when he says : " The 
world is a vast and grand game of cards, made up of emper- 
ors, kings and princes. The pope for several centuries has 
beaten emperors, princes and kings. They have been put 
down and taken up by him. Then came God : he dealt the 
cards; he took the most worthless of them all, and with it 
he has beaten the pope, the conqueror of the kings of earth. 



EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION. 6 1 

There is the ace of God. He has cast down the mighty 
from their seats, and has exalted them of low degree." 

Luther and Zwingle will likely continue to be regarded as 
the two most significant leaders of the Reformation. So far 
as the political effect of the Reformation is concerned the 
Swiss reformer was of more direct consequence than the Ger- 
man. The reformation of morals was the great aim of his 
life, and being an enthusiast in liberty as well as religion, he 
took a live interest in correcting abuses of the state. The 
town of Zurich became a republic under his emancipating 
touch, and was the first of the little republics of Switzerland, 
which have been so highly complimented by all lovers of 
liberty. Without a doubt Zwingle was the greatest political 
reformer ever produced by the Swiss. He organized a 
strong party which believed in representative government in 
opposition to the oligachy of the church, and which in many 
cantons obtained the ascendency and gave birth to civil 
liberty in the mountains of Schoffhausen. 

The spirit of the Reformation had now become a factor 
in civilization, and all civilized government was henceforth 
to be effected by it. It had given the nations a sense of the 
right of the most humble before God as equal to the right 
of the most kingly or scholarly, and in consequence equal 
rights before rulers and in government. People were begin- 
ning to love freedom, pant for liberty and feel the high need 
of adopting better forms of government. As the crusades 
had changed social life, the Reformation changed moral life ; 
and as life is purified morally, it will be elevated politically. 
It is easy to see how the Reformation contributed to dignify 
the better elements in national life. 

By the teaching of this Reformation every man felt him- 
self directly*responsible before the Almighty; with no other 
mediator than Christ, with no absolution from sin but repent- 
ance and a new life. There could be no higher expression 
of the liberty of the individual over against his fellow men. 
The claim to the right of freedom in private judgment is a 
feeble and partial doctrine in comparison ; for the former 



62 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

declares the individual man under God alone, not the keeper 
of this judgment only, but independent of pope, bishop and 
priest, the keeper of his reason, affections, conscience and 
character; of his whole being now and hereafter. In this 
Reformative age such preaching as this pointed to the gate, 
through which the more intellectual were to pass to free- 
dom. So that, in political philosophy, the Reformation 
became an expression of the right of the human intellect to 
freedom. Under its inspiration tyranny over mind became 
hateful, monarchy lost its sanctity, and representative gov- 
ernment was anchored in the heart of humanity. 

Slowly and with hesitation the rights of all men asserted 
the privilege to be represented in national life. The growth of 
old English common laws, the general basis of the Ameri- 
can government, played an important part in the distribu- 
tion of the powers and government. England deserves no 
credit for giving this law of general opinion to all free gov- 
ernments, for she used the whole force of the crown to 
crush it ; but being a necessity in the developement of civic 
society it, like many great truths, came into favor in spite of 
the upper and lower houses of the crown's authority and the 
nation's ignorance, where it has now broken to fragments. 
That truth crushed to earth will rise again, finds an interest- 
ing instance in the rise of English common law. 

It was considered by the English people that England's 
glory and stability were all lost at the battle of Hastings. It 
is true that a great kingdom was thrashed outright by a 
single prince ; but England then was painfully destitute of 
great men, and men great in the breadth of their intelli- 
gence, the range of their knowledge and solid in the right- 
ness of their principles are always the security of a people 
thrown into danger. When weak and insipid characters lead 
a people to defensive war their cause is lost ; because of the 
very lack of intelligence and moral power to lead and com- 
mand. When brain and heart are infirm the hand is weak. 
It was a brave army that fell at Hastings, but domestic fac- 
tions exposed the country to the invader. In the defeat of 



GROWTH OF THE COMMON LAW. 6^ 

the English at Hastings the first step toward the common 
law was made, though England could not see it. From Hast- 
ings William of Normandy proceeded to literally take Eng- 
land, and then riveted such fetters upon the conquered people 
as to make all resistence seem impracticable. The very 
nanie of Englishman was turned into reproach, no one of the 
race was given a position in church or state. Their language 
was considered barbarous and they were forced under pen- 
alty to use the French language in all legal instruments, 
in church services and in the schools. Within twenty years 
from the time William the Conqueror camped at Hastings 
the ^ whole English soil belonged to the Normans. The 
tyranny of the Norman conquerors heavily oppressed the con- 
quered English. The Norman laws show no provission 
made which was calculated to maintain private liberty or pub- 
lic honor. This had produced such a cry of despair and com- 
plaint, that, when finally Henry H. succeeded to the throne, 
the needs of the common people were begining to reach the 
ears of the throne with some little effect. A king's court 
was established to hear the cases of complaint for personal 
wrong. But as few could have recourse to so distant a tri- 
bunal as the king's court, and perhaps also on account of the 
attachment which the English felt for their ancient right of 
trial by their neighboring freeholders, itinerant justices were 
estabhshed, to decide civil and criminal cases within each 
county. And to this is due the uniformity of the common 
law. Gradually from this grew the common law, to have a 
a place in the laws of the nation. It was simply the law of 
the people. It is contrasted with the statute law, as a law 
that was not declared by the throne, but which grew out of 
the very breasts of the people ; it is different from the law of 
equity, as in law prevailing between man and man ; it 
differs from local law, as it is a general law designed for the 
whole realm. It is different from civil, common, or inter- 
national law, which were systems recognized as having their 
functions only in certain courts, and always restrained by the 
limits of the common law. In contrast with all these laws it 



64 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

may be considered broadly as the universal law of the realm, 
and was intended to apply wherever they did not prevail, 
and was expected to have a rule for discussion for every pos- 
sible case that might arise in all the perplexing emergencies 
of misdemeanor. 

Blackstone divides the civil law of England into statute 
law and common law. The legality or validity of these 
usages is to be determined by the judges who are the depo- 
sitories of the law, who must decide in all cases of doubt, and 
who are bound by an oath to decide according to the law of 
the land. Their judgments are preserved in records, and it 
is an established rule to abide by former precedents when 
the same cases again come in litigation. The high respect 
paid to precedents is the source of most of the peculiarities 
of the old English common law. It was never a fixed or 
rigid system. In the changing conditions of society, and the 
rise and growth of new principles, new cases would constantly 
spring up, which demanded new treatment, which gave 
great elasticity to the law, yet wonderful ingenuity was dis- 
played in preserving its integrity and honor to meet the 
wants of justice. Pre-eminently a national system of un- 
written law, founded upon custom and legalized by prece- 
dents, it in time became the source for more equality in law 
and government. 

By the oppression thrust upon England by the Norman 
conquerors was produced the common law, and out of this 
common law grew the Magna Charta, the palladium of 
Anglo-Saxon liberty. The rights of the people were despised 
by overbearing and tyrannical Norman princes ; and when 
the cry of defense was raised, and it was sought to secure 
redress, a state of anarchy was produced that was never still. 
Under the growing favor given the people by the common 
law, they aimed to assert in some tangible and lasting man- 
ner the rights which were felt to be inborn in the Saxon 
race. This was at last obtained by the people, sword in 
hand, from King John, on the meadows of Runnymede. 
His reign had been one outrageous abridgement of the 



DEMANDS UPON ROYAL SOVEREIGNTY. 65 

rights of the people. He was the strong representative of 
royal oppression, completely under the influence of the pope. 
From the very exhaustion of patience the people rose to 
speak a rebuke. The blood of the old Saxon and his Nor- 
man conquerors had flown together for years, and Saxon 
sentiment had modified the Norman rule to harmony with 
English ideas ; and the barons and yoemen united, felt the 
indignation caused by kingly wrong, determined on measures 
of liberty, and sent word to King John that they desired to 
meet him, and should meet him, outside the sovereign's 
castle. And while this people, warmed by the breath of 
freedom's prophecy, are assembled on the field of Runny- 
mede, the door of Windsor castle opens and John obeys the 
voice that comes from offended manhood. It was royalty 
riding down, with herald and guard, to man to do him hom- 
age. It was a virtual acknowledgement that man's rights 
are higher than kings' prerogatives. The people had written 
their demands on parchment and John had to sign his name 
to the document and stamp his seal upon it. The Magna 
CJiarta is signed and sealed by the king. Never did com- 
monalty make and carry such demand upon royal sover- 
eignity. This charter, later confirmed in parliament by 
Henry III., declared the principal grounds upon which 
should rest fundamental laws for England. Long after came 
in the petition of right, which was a parliamentary acknowl- 
edgement of the liberties of the people, asserted by Charles I. 
This was followed by the habeas corpus act under Charles II. 
Then the bill of rights granted by the lords and commons, 
which granted free rights to the people, and free government 
had its birthright, not from royalty but from the common 
people. 

So much for the rise of these rights and liberties which 
constitute the full Magna Charta. They are not the rights 
of all mankind, but, restrained by tyranny and oppression, 
were a long while working their way to the front in national 
life. The rights secured by the Magna Charta may be 
reduced to three principal or primary articles : the right of 
5 



66 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

personal security, the right of personal liberty and the right 
of private property. From this it is seen that the highest 
power in government is not the desire of king or noble, but 
the opinions of the people. 

In the Magna CJiarta the right of trial by jury is fre- 
quently referred to as the principal balance of English 
liberties. It must be esteemed as one of the highest and 
most beneficial ways of holding sacred the personal and 
property rights of citizens. It is very difificult to trace a 
clear origin for the trial by jury. It has been a prevailing^ 
opinion that it had its origin in the early Saxon age of 
Britain ; but there are signs of its Roman, and again of its 
Norman, origin ; while some writers trace it through the 
Norsemen to a Scandinavian source. The true idea is that 
this, like so many of the best rights of man, grew up by the 
very necessity of his needs, and reached by many different 
channels its ultimate high state. One most significant custom 
which contributed to produce it was the Norman practice of 
sworn inquest, and which the Norman princes found such 
frequent need to use after the conquest. They had to rely 
on this method for accurate information. In disputed cases 
they needed a true account of the points and facts under 
controversy, and such an account was sought for by sworn 
evidence. Hence it is safe to conclude that the Norman 
conquest fostered these germs of the early jury. By this 
jury no citizen could be harmed in property or person with- 
out the unanimous consent of twelve of his neighbors, 
sworn to carefully consider all the evidence touching every 
controverted point, and then impartially and with conscien- 
tious regard for their honor, return an honest verdict. No 
method was ever designed by which justice can better be 
attained. It is the chief glory of modern law. In regulat- 
ing civil and deciding criminal cases it has an advantage 
over other methods. It is certainly the most eminent priv- 
ilege which any citizen can wish, that he cannot be affected 
in property or person without the unanimous consent of 
twelve of his peers. It has given constitutional law its best 



THE RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY. 6/ 

and surest tranquility. Had Rome, Sparta and Carthage 
had the trial by jury, their Hberties, which went down under 
conditions of unjust and unequal laws that produced an- 
archy, might have been safe. The great object of civil 
society is to secure our persons and property by the impar- 
tial administration of justice ; but if this administration be 
left to an official body elected or appointed for the purpose, 
their verdicts, in spite of the effort to decide just, would 
frequently have a bias in favor of those of their own rank 
or position. If the power of administration were placed at 
random in the hands of the multitude, as did the democracy 
of Greece, the decisions would be loose and unreliable ; but 
a competent number of faithful and upright jurymen, chosen 
by lot, will be found the best to weigh impartially the facts 
in evidence, will -be the surest custodian of the law's power 
and of justice. For here the most powerful person will 
hesitate to involve the rights of another when he knows 
that his wrong will be examined into by twelve persons not 
selected until the time for trial, and that the facts once 
ascertained by them the law must avenge it. This then 
preserves in the hands of the people a large part of the 
administration of justice, and prevents the power of the law 
from being contested by the wealthy or designing. 

Every new tribunal created to decide upon facts, without 
the intervention of the jury is a step in direction of aris- 
tocracy. In every attempt in Europe to drop the trial by 
equals, the nobles have increased in power to the danger of 
the commonwealth. In Sweden, where the trial by jury 
was preserved until the middle of the last century, as the 
bulwark of northern liberty, it was finally lost and the rights 
of the commons was extinguished, and government has 
degenerated into a mere aristocracy. 

The intrinsic value of this political institution is prac- 
tically unlimited. It is the highest security against an unequal 
administration of justice ; as it is no respecter of persons it 
is provided to deal to all alike, in the same measure, the 
judgments of the law. It is a positive guarantee that 



68 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

before a man can be wrongly dealt with by the law, or 
escape without the penalty of a broken law, twelve men good 
and true in the estimation of the court must themselves do 
wrong. A duty, than which there can be few higher, is that 
of every man, to maintain by all his honor this invaluable 
constitution of human rights ; to strive to prevent it from 
being lowered in dignity or lowered in stringency ; to guard 
it against civil innovations of method and to sacredly keep 
watch over its character, that it in no way may be subverted 
from its natural and old time prerogatives. As it is the 
chief thing American law has inherited from the old English 
law, Americans especially ought to gratefully preserve its 
place and rank in our laws and courts of justice. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHAT LED TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

WE now approach the origin of American national Hfe. 
The preHminary ground over which we have gone has 
shown the wide range of sources from which modern free 
government has been born. It has been a long and circuit- 
ous route which liberty has taken to reach its highest and 
most gifted form ; and if tracing its tortuous way through 
these revolutions and reforms of the past has been interest- 
ing, we may fairly hope still greater interest in now beholding 
it in a high state of worth and beauty. 

American national life displays the most benign and per- 
fect system of society in the world ; just as the American 
government affords the best example of a free and popular 
form of government. 

The causes which led to the organization of the Ameri- 
can national life are as interesting as to trace the progress of 
the life of the American people. It was an opportune age 
when the New World was uncovered from the hiding place 
of the past. The general upturning of old forms and in- 
stitutions, created by the feudal system ; the barbarous tribes 
of the north over-running Europe, and the birth of modern 
maritime enterprise, resulting from the crusades ; the great 
impulse given to popular rights, and the stress laid upon 
personal opinion by the Reformation ; the revival of learn- 
ing and the fresh interest taken in scientific research and 
philosophical discussion, all combined to usher in what may 
be regarded as the most remarkable period of civilization — 
the far-reaching fifteenth century. At least it has so far 
proven to be the most far-reaching in its mighty influences. 
In politics every settled form, which had been in power 
through all time, was breaking up. First, the Northmen, caring 



70 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

nothing for the few ties which bound them to their wild 
fastnesses, and having no government except what was vested 
in the chieftain and his council, bore in uncalendared num- 
bers down through the countries of the south. To resist 
this invasion the feudal system grew up, which gave the first 
effectual blow at despotism by creating a mutual relation 
between lord and vassal. In religion the world was equally 
unsettled and indicated a thorough change. The crusades 
resulted in causing a profound interest in religious thought, 
and in customs and forms among the masses, and began the 
process which finally tore religious power and exclusive 
privilege from the papal leaders. Mediaeval priestcraft 
became as hateful as mediaeval kingcraft. 

Close on the crusade spirit came the reformation spirit, 
and centralization of religious power and favor heard its 
death knell. The religious world was emancipated, and all 
civilization gave an unusual bound forward. Learning was 
again a thing of interest, and taken from the monks it 
kindled into a light that lit up a nev/ intellectual period. 
The crusades, breaking into the secluded schools and libra- 
ries of the Orient, gave circulation to the seeds of knowledge, 
and the enthusiasm of the West was soon energized by the 
thought of the East. Movable type was invented, printed 
works followed, and the poorer classes could afford to read 
and study. Soon they began to think, and the thought of 
the brain touched the key-board of Europe's industries at the 
bidding of a new enterprise. The commerce of the world 
had been stagnated for centuries ; the products of one clime 
found no demand in other climes. As a result of this, 
internal trade was dull, and all life was dull with it. The 
crusade epoch changed all this. Men went over into Asia 
and to Palestine the first time to fight for a religious idea ; 
they came back to prepare to go the second time to trade in 
commerce. Navies were built; ships were ladened with 
cargoes ; great highways were opened ; shops and factories 
were erected; agriculture again became a business; the 
mariner's compass was invented ; and on the discovery of the 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 7 1 

polarity of the magnet, and modern civilization, the Ameri- 
can era, was brought in with the hum of machinery, the 
clang of hammers, the noise of commerce and the grand 
anvil chorus of the world's busy industries. Columbus took 
up the spirit of the age and gave the sublime courage of his 
faith ; Isabel caught the spirit and gave the jewels from neck 
and hand, and America was born. 

One of the wonders of the world, greater than either of 
the seven reputed ancient wonders, is that this land of the 
high hill, the great prairie, the broad savannah, the deep 
forest and the mighty river, should have lain hid behind the 
curtain of the known world, and disclose itself just in time to 
mark the first great age of reformation and invention as 
being also the age of discovery. 

A volume might be written concerning pre-historic 
America — that period which hes prior to the discovery by 
Columbus. Those dusky men of the hillside and the river 
bank. From whence did they come,, and when? What 
their connecting link with the rest of mankind, and when 
and where did they break with the brotherhood of man, and 
how did they lose their identity? The long centuries they 
lived and roamed over this great land, migrating from hill to 
hill, or river to river; the wild and awful romance of their 
hunting, trapping and fishing, as well as taking the bison on 
the plain or the bear in the deep woods; their sports and 
games, their very simplicity bespeaking innocence; their 
rude home life and still ruder forms of government ; their 
strategy and cunning in war ; their plain but lofty words of 
eloquence by the council fire, lofty as the eloquence of the 
wild wind's shriek when lashed by the arms of the forest, or 
the clear bell-notes of the waterfall when cut by the ragged 
rock ; their thoughts of mind and strange aspirations of soul, 
like half glimpses of inspiration from the God of nature — 
these headings could be drawn out into long chapters to fas- 
cinate the mind. For the mythological period of a people's 
history is of the strangeness and mystery that holds our 
interest. To lift that curtain which conceals all Indian hfe 



7^ THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

back of the discovery would be a task which many would 
hail with fond delight, for it would open a new field of pas- 
tures fresh for the antiquarian to revel in the luxury of medi- 
tations upon the early life of a strange confederacy of tribes. 
But it is given only to the hand of mere speculation to raise 
that curtain. 

Speculation is of but little service in tracing the philoso- 
phy of history, or in studying the science of national life ; 
hence we dismiss the temptation to linger here with the 
muse of mere fancy, leaving to the antiquarian and legend- 
ary student the pleasure of writing under the inspiration of 
the wigwam smoke and by the council fire, with the single 
reflection, that we hope some American Homer, or Chaucer, 
more elaborate than Schoolcraft or Longfellow, will dip the 
oar in this limpid sea of America's mythical past and light 
the torch by which the night mantled waters of early Indian 
life may be fully seen. America's boys would call such a 
one great. 

No less uncertain, are the records of discovery prior to 
Columbus. A few traditions, made unreliable by their im- 
probable proportions, a town or two, and a long line of 
mounds from north to south throughout the country are the 
most conclusive evidence of earlier discoveries and settle- 
ments. The fact of discovery to which they point is con- 
clusive, but to designate any trait of civilization, or stage of 
enlightenment, or the proportions to which the settlements 
attained, is impossible. It would be interesting to know 
whether European sail or Asiatic prow first threw a shadow 
on the New World's shore. 

It would be interesting to know from where the mound 
builders came, to understand their very peculiar customs and 
the cause of their evident migration southward, and whether 
the civilization of Peru and Mexico, which reached such 
marvelous architectural skill, was built by them. 

The Northmen were great colonists, having settled Ice- 
land and Greenland during the middle ages. And there is a 
mere possibility of some adventurous party having extended 



ANCIENT TRADITIONS. 73 

their voyage to Labrador, and, passing it, explored the 
coasts below. But the supposition that such was the case 
rests upon very uncertain mythological narratives. No 
historic evidence is extant showing that the Northmen ac- 
complished such a feat. The generally accredited tale that 
an Icelandic colony was planted on the American coast in 
the tenth century, is equally uncertain ; and no plain vestige 
of their presence on this continent has been found. The 
marts of England were frequently entered by the Lombard 
traders and the story tellers among the adventurous North- 
men told of Scandinavian legends which hinted at a conti- 
nent lying hid beyond the blue wave of the Atlantic. The 
extensive fisheries of the north had called to the sea the 
merchants of Bristol, who eventually opened a commerce 
with Iceland. This made the North Atlantic not altogether 
unfamiliar to the daring boatmen of the sea. From this 
grew up a vague story about Icelanders making remote 
discoveries in Greenland toward the northwest, " where the 
lands must meet." But these traditions only served to 
confirm in the minds of bold explorers in science the old 
Pythagorean teaching that the earth is a sphere, and that 
the water which washes Europe on the west, touches Asia 
on the east. 

It was left for Columbus to reduce these stories to the 
ground of faith, and who, by the instruction he received 
from the verierable Tarcanelli, the Florentine astronomer, 
who made a map of the world with Asia close against the 
waters that skirted Europe, grasped the keys of the ocean 
and ventured to open a short path to the wealth of the 
Indies. The genuis of God had touched that man. And 
through him, just as kingcraft had driven men from their last 
personal rights, God opened the gates of a new continent, 
and bade oppressed millions enter, to breath an air whose 
freedom was sung by the birds and by the woodland breeze. 

It may be taken as one of those Providences, which 
now and then in the progress of events, when the whole 
world was burdened with shackles upon the brain, wrist and 



74 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

heart, and the humanity of the race was in danger of being 
lost 'neath the menial and cringing life of the lost estate of 
manhood, that just then, the very thunder crash of renewed 
vigor crushed the wall of a concealed continent and the 
alluvial valley and sun-crowned mountain invited man once 
more to toil and be free. 

Civilization walks by faith and not by reason alone. And 
it is suggestive of the lines of divinity woven through the 
woof and warp of humanity that the discovery of America 
was an incident in the ways of God, rather than an accident 
happening in the ways of man. To trace man's struggle 
and God's design in forming and coalescing the elements of 
American national life will form a most interesting chapter. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ELEMENTS FORMING OUR NATIONAL LIFE. 

IF some of the worst elements of European society found 
their way to the New World, because compelled to leave to 
escape punishment of crimes, or from a mere spirit of adven- 
ture, the great moral elements moved far in excess of the 
evil. It is to these original elements of stern and severe 
morality, honest industry, conscientious scruples and relia- 
bility of purpose that we owe chiefly the grandeur of the 
American republic. They were elements of character that 
were born in the day of oppression and in the night of per- 
secution, and for this very reason partook of that peculiarity 
of sternness and narrowness which has called forth so many 
criticisms against the colonial fathers. But their spirit, dis- 
position and religious convictions were such as mighty 
empires are ever made of. They were tested at every pos- 
sible point of life's compass, and were found to be the only 
principles upon which the state and society could safely and 
securely rest. Driven by the oppression and tyranny of the 
rulers to the extremity of despair, these old founders and 
prophets of our country took refuge in God. Here they 
found a peace of mind and quiet heart which gave them an 
intense desire to flee to some land unfrequented by the 
despoiler of personal liberty and right, where they might 
enjoy their convictions of mind unmolested and worship 
their God without any other dictation than that of their 
conscience. They sought and found refuge in the land where 
religious persecutions and political oppression had lifted no 
voice of tyranny. 

The first of these exile people for conscience-sake to be 
noticed are the Huguenots. The part they contributed to 
the morals of American national life has generally been 

75 



^6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

underrated. They were the rehgious and political reformers 
of France. Simple in dress and living, they were frugal 
and thrifty, and among them were the more intelligent 
classes. They were greatly oppressed, and when they peti- 
tioned for equal rights in the government they were so 
persecuted that they were led to be satisfied with mere 
toleration. They were a devout people, meeting in quiet to 
sing Morat's psalms, to listen to earnest prayer, and to be 
inspired by a practical discourse to bear suffering and show 
charity. It was an heroic career, this of the Huguenots, in 
France, striving under the power of the court and before 
the sneer of the proud and fickle populace, to live the sim- 
plest ideal of Christian faith. They contributed immensely 
to the material wealth of France, the principal industries of 
the land owing their flourishing condition to them, and a 
sorrowful day it was for the material welfare of France when 
Louis XIV. rooted up their homes and destroyed their 
industries. When he evoked the edict of Nantes, which 
was somewhat in their favor, it drove a full million of the 
thriftiest citizens from their fatherland, and fully one-half 
the commercial and manufacturing industry of the country 
was crushed. The throne was largely responsible for the 
Huguenot massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day. At two 
o'clock in the morning, when the bell gave the alarm agreed 
upon, bands of assassins rushed upon the unsuspecting 
Huguenots and slaughtered without pity. Five thousand 
falling in Paris, and twenty thousand in the land, was a blow 
heavy enough to make these despised people, who were the 
true saviors of France, fly for safety to America. 

These French Huguenots settled in large numbers in the 
Carolinas, New York and Acadia (Nova Scotia). South 
Carolina was their chief resort, where their arts, ingenuity 
and industrial skill made a settlement yet celebrated for its 
affluence and hospitality. The oppressed Huguenots of 
France became enfranchised citizens of South Carolina, and 
the broad liberality and sterling character they gave the 
colony yet attest the high esteem in which the common- 



THE FRENCH HUGUENOTS. 7/ 

wealth is held. In Acadia they settled, a quiet, orderly peo- 
ple on the rich farms, and they loved their simple churches 
and customs. Here, as in France, they suffered every indig- 
nity; then from the French, now from the English king. 
At last the English, to secure their farms, determined to 
banish them from the Acadian shores. A day was ap- 
pointed upon which, at the ringing of the bells, the Hugue- 
not farmers should assemble to hear a proclamation from 
the English governor. They assembled as directed in their 
village churches, the doors were closed, soldiers filed up the 
aisles, and the poor, distressed martyrs of truth for two 
hundred years again heard the voice of persecution. Torn 
from home and farm and family they were driven on ship 
to be exiled to strange shores. As husbands and fathers 
sailed out over the sea, mothers and little ones were left 
desolate on the beach, and in the holes in rocks, or in the 
sand to shiver and weep. Here cruelty descends to bru- 
tality. These Acadian exiles went to Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia, and the broken 
families never had a reunion in this life. Their frugal 
life, mechanical genius and liberality of opinion acted 
like a leaven on all the colonies through which they were 
scattered. 

In this way the national life showed abundant evidence 
of the Huguenot influence, and the early history of the coun- 
try bore ample praise to their many noble deeds and to their 
generous disposition and character of magnanimity. Judith 
Manigault was a young wife who suffered with her family 
the wretchedness of disease, pestilence, famine and poverty, 
going six months without tasting bread. Yet out of the 
struggle with British tyranny came the son of this woman 
of noble sacrifice, who gave a vast fortune, he had acquired, 
to the service of the country which had given nothing but 
free air and unmolested opportunities to his mother. The 
Boston hall in which New England eloquence aroused the 
spirit for independence, was the gift of the son of a Huguenot. 
When the cause of our independence was being pleaded at 



78 THE SCIE^XE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Paris, before the astonished gaze of the world, the grandson 
of a Huguenot, knowing from boyhood the bitter wrongs of 
his ancestors, aided to secure the recognition of France, and 
did a strong part to secure the extension of American terri- 
tory. Institutions of learning were founded by descendants 
of Huguenots, and far and wide the landmarks of the heroic 
reformers are noticeable in the past of American progress. 

Faith was a leading peculiarity of the Huguenot charac- 
ter. And faith in human progress is one of the essential 
qualities of national as of individual life. When justice is 
torn from the pedestal of authority, and right lays down its 
sceptre at the bidding of tyranny, human advancement 
appears shackled beyond a peradventure of disenthrallment. 
It requires a strong faith in the inherent strength of human 
right and God's truth to see that humanity has not lost its 
honor, and to escape the waters of despair. In man or 
nation this is a sublime trait of character. It has saved 
many a life from making wreck, and proven many a time a 
pillar of support in national disaster. And the nation, in a 
majority of whose people this moral foresight is pre-eminent, 
is harbored safe from the wild beatings of those storms in 
which so many empires go down. This trait of character 
seemed like a special gift in the Huguenots. The very dis- 
asters they passed through appeared to strengthen them. 
In the Acadian Huguenots faith was the power that gave 
courage to the Acadian prisoners, patience to the Acadian 
mothers, resignation to the Acadian wanderers, and hope to 
the Acadian lovers. They 'became contented and prosper- 
ous wherever their lots were cast, and at once set about refin- 
ing society, liberating the people's views, and equalizing and 
elevating the laws. The Huguenots are the moral mystery 
of modern history. Their habits, customs, views and simple 
life are impressed on American life, and American industries 
owe them a debt of gratitude. 

Among all the English settlers who built the log-cabin on 
the American frontier, there were none more brave, persever- 
ing or manly than the stout old Pilgrims. 



TRIALS OF THE PURITANS. 79 

In England they had the name of Puritans, out of con- 
tempt for pretentions to living pure lives. It was first ap- 
plied in 1564, to those who refused to conform to the dead 
formality of the state church, and was continued during the 
reigns of Elizabeth and the first of the Stuarts. They arose 
to assert themselves against the despotic authority of the 
king, as well as the pretentious power of the established 
clergy. When they came to power in parliament they 
worked hard to secure measures more favorable to the hus- 
bandry of the country, and to set men free in religion and 
politics ; and asserted their liberties with such tenacity and 
vigor that King James grew bitter toward them, declar- 
ing he would live a hermit in the forest rather than be 
king over the pack of Puritans that overruled the lower house ; 
and that they were insufferable in every well-governed 
commonwealth. He issued a proclamation demanding all 
non-conformists to assent to the regular forms of religion 
without complaint, or leave the country; and as a result, 
thousands were imprisoned, deprived of their rights as citi- 
izens, or exiled. It brought about a struggle between the 
established church and the Puritans for absolute monarchy 
or free representation of the people, and limitation of the 
power of the throne. The former believed the king was 
superior to the parliament and the laws ; the latter, that the 
throne itself was subject to law, and had the doctrine of pop- 
ular rights. 

Hallam says that the stern Puritans, exasperated at the 
religious formality and political persecution, rebelled so man- 
fully that they were the depositories of the sacred fire of lib- 
erty. Hume says that the authority of the crown was so 
absolute that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled 
and was preserved by the Puritans alone, and to this sect the 
English owe the whole freedom of their constitution. They 
looked upon liberty as the political gospel which was every 
man's right. They asserted the duty of men in spiritual and 
political affairs, to hold themselves open to every impression 
of truth, and that it was a never-ceasing right to make ad- 



80 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

varices in truth ; conservative only in virtue, they were agres- 
sive in rehgion and government ; fanatics in their austere 
views of the mere concerns of the world, they were broad 
and liberal in all the leading principles of a progressive 
church and state. They were the very evangels of freedom. 
They were the faithful prophets of constitutional govern- 
ment. Being under the ban of the crown, and subject to all 
sorts of indignities of bigoted ofificers, they were treated as 
social and religious foes, and when oppression began to 
change into persecution, they kept their meetings in secret, 
which still more subjected them to the inhumanity of bigoted 
treatment ; and at last despairing of welcome or peace in their 
own native land, they voluntarily went into exile; but they 
were welcomed to Holland, where they had heard there was 
freedom in religion for all men. The Puritan outcasts became 
Pilgrim wanderers. England lost the most heroic element 
of her citizenship, but the world, and especially America, 
gained the eloquent presence of the best advocates for uni- 
versal liberty. Evil is sometimes turned into good, and 
lamenting the suffering to which the Puritans were needlessly 
exposed in England, we thank England for virtually driving 
them from her inhospitable shores ; for America has gained 
an imperial force of great magnitude, which shall help mould 
the greatest nation of all time. 

After less than a decade of years in Holland, the Pilgrims, 
as the Puritans were now called, bethought themselves of 
still further migrations. In England they had been agricul- 
turists, in Holland they were forced to learn mechanical 
trades. The language of the Dutch never became pleasant 
to them ; and their closely confined lives in shops and facto- 
ries resulted sadly, in connection with their sorrows, in break- 
ing down their health. Discontent set in, and they were in 
danger of becoming a feeble, decrepit colony in a strange 
country, Besides, they were conscious of their ability to act 
an important part in the new religious and political move- 
ments of humanity; which prompted them, like all true re- 
reformers, to push to the front of the stage and take a 



LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 8 1 

position where they could act the part they had chosen. 
America was that stage. The determination was made. 
Many and long meetings, for consecration to their new pur- 
pose, were held. Freedom of opinion and independence of 
action were declared to be their doctrines, and such advanced 
ideas of right and truth were not elsewhere known in the 
world at that time. 

In the late autumn of 1620, the Mayflower vessel, 
freighted with the Pilgrims, grounded against Plymouth 
Rock. Before landing, they formed a compact which should 
regulate their future government. That compact was a 
great commonwealth in a bud. It was one of the most posi- 
tive and suggestive papers which was ever framed to estab- 
lish a body politic. This is the sublime paper of govern- 
ment which was written and signed in that Mayflower cabin : 

" In the name of God, amen : We, whose names are under- 
written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign. King 
James, having undertaken for the glory of God and advance- 
ment of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and coun- 
try, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts 
of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, 
in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and 
combine ourselves together, into a civil body politic, for our 
better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends 
aforesaid ; and, by virtue thereof, to enact, constitute and 
frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitu- 
tions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought 
most convenient for the general good of the colony. Unto 
which we promise all due submission and obedience." 

This instrument was approved by the whole company. 
This ship cabin was the birth-chamber of popular constitu- 
tional liberty for America. While this paper acknowledges 
King James of England as their sovereign, it declares that 
under him they are all equal, and that in colonial legislative 
affairs the opinion of all shall be heard, and the vote of one 
shall have the same force as any other. Equality was 
established, 
6 



'siiiL. 



82 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Free speech was at last, after centuries of waiting', 
ordained as a privilege to all men. The middle age of the 
world had known charters and ordinances ; but they were 
only instruments for partial enfranchisements, protests of 
nobility, or mere limitations of despotic power. But in this 
Mayflower cabin humanity had its rights acknowledged, and 
government was instituted on the basis of equal laws and 
for the general good. The shackles were beginning to fall,, 
and it seemed encouraging to the people of the New World. 

This Pilgrim colony at Plymouth was the first successful 
attempt to plant a colony in New England. A grateful 
people have marked the rock on which these Puritan reform- 
ers first put foot. The civilization of the land owes a credit 
mark to that first effort at constitutional liberty in this coun- 
try. The institutions of New England, the boast and pride 
of her people, take their rise from the Plymouth landing. 
When they landed the commonwealth was in germ already, 
and liberty for all men and freedom in religion were started 
into being. 

The system of government growing out of this Pilgrim 
compact was of a simple character. A governor was chosen by 
general vote, and who was subject to the general will through 
a council of five. There could be no law without the con- 
sent of freemen. When the population increased, represent- 
atives were chosen by the whole people to make laws. 
They established schools and enacted a law to compel the 
education of children. They printed a newspaper as early 
as 1639. Harvard College, the morning star of science in 
the New World, was started by Puritan legislation, and it is 
largely in their encouragement of learning that New England 
has the chief secret of its success and solid character. Puri- 
tanism was full of life, activity, intelligence and thrift, 
and prosperity followed as a natural sequence. 

The Puritans have been much blamed for persecuting- 
those who differed with them in religious views. The tyranny 
of their circumstances must be their only excuse, while in 
this they can have no defense. They established a settle- 



MOTIVES OF THE PURITANS. 83 

merit in the wilderness of the West for the only purpose of 
escaping the servitude of the religious and political oppres- 
sion of the established church in England, and to build up a 
perpetual asylum for their posterity to enjoy religious free- 
dom without the molestations to which they had been so 
long exposed. When that same established church planted 
its congregations in the New World also, and began to grow 
in influence and power, they naturally regarded it with sus- 
picion ; and fearing its growing strength, and determining at 
all hazards to protect themselves against any future contin- 
gency, in case this power should beget the old spirit of per- 
secution, they in simple defense deemed it a duty to them- 
selves and their posterity to protest even unto persecution. 
It was a great wrong, and for it they ought to be blamed ; 
yet blamed from a knowledge of their perplexing circumstan- 
ces. It must always be said to their honor that their 
persecution was always directed by expediency; to protect 
themselves, not to injure others. It was a pure love for 
truth and freedom, rather than a cherished hatred for their 
old enemies. 

Their sojourn in Holland had given them impressions of 
other religious views, just as free as their own, and as mag- 
nanimous, too, and this happily left a salutary effect upon 
them ; so that whatever they did against the dead formality 
of the established religion, in its allegiance to the crown and 
its dislike for all progress, must be accredited to their intense 
desire to preserve their liberty and spirit of progress, and a 
readiness to frown upon every attempt to subvert their 
character. For this they are rather to be honored. 

A chief glory that settles around the Puritan colonists, is, 
that it was a great moral idea that prompted them to locate 
in America, and neither an adventurous spirit nor desire for 
wealth. " He that made religion as twelve, and the world 
as thirteen, had not the spirit of a true New England man." 
They were the most free from credulity of all the sects of 
their day. In every reformatory movement in Europe there 
had grown so many superstitions that the ages have not dis- 



84 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

lodged them. But the Puritans had at once freed them- 
selves from all their observances which were fatal to prog- 
ress. Their laws were the most humane in the world, and 
in all social and domestic afTairs they were far in advance of 
their age. They had not had a single instance of a divorce. 
They lived more for posterity than for themselves. So care- 
ful were they in guarding against all temptations and evils, 
that they were strangers to the sight of a drunkard, and in 
the midst of all their distress they could furnish no instance 
of a beggar. As a result of this careful and pure living the 
average duration of puritan life was double that of the 
cotemporary life of Europe. Those pure-minded, stout- 
hearted Puritans accomplished for mankind untold good, and 
in America they did more than all other colonies combined, to 
prevent the land from being a mere bedlam place for adven- 
ture and trade, without law or order; for they fixed their 
system of schools in the desire of the people, and founded 
national character in universal learning. They gave to the 
country solid and definite laws and kindled in the hearts of 
the people the emotion of undying liberty. It was not 
merely as pioneers that these Puritans deserve to be highly 
thought and spoken of, but as reformers, founders, moulders, 
legislators ; but more especially still for their pure love of 
freedom and pure character of life. The world has seldom 
seen a better class of men. At one of the most discouraging 
periods of history they suddenly arose with their unflinch- 
ing courage and sublime devotion to conscientious right, and 
rebuked the fickleness and tyranny of their age. Upon the 
measures which they defended they brought to bear as high 
qualities of mind as any age ever witnessed. Their elevated 
piety, enlarged views and nobility of purpose made them a 
great moral figure in the new civilization which they came 
to help mould. They made sacrifices which the world has 
never been able to appreciate. For in their great wisdom, 
unfailing endurance, elevation of sentiment and devotion to 
the instincts of liberty, they gave up wealth, influence and 
the favor of England ; assumed exile with all the hardships. 



RESULTS OF PURITANISM. 85 

poverty, sickness and distress, consequent upon life in a new- 
country. And such are always the men whom providence 
appoints to control great reforms and become the prime 
movers in the progress of every great truth. If praise be 
given chivalry for its devotion to righting the wrong and 
defending the weak, puritanism deserves still greater praise 
for its devotion to the idea of right and its defense of truth 
irrespective of persons. 

These Puritans were the parents of one third of the 
whole white population of the United States as it was in 
1834. From this fact, and from a knowledge of their char- 
acter, it is seen that the Puritans had an immense influence 
in the formative period of our country. Their ideas in 
education, religion, industry and government are inseparably 
connected with the history of our national life. From these 
sentiments, as held by the Puritans, grew the independence 
of the colonies. From puritanism we have inherited three 
great institutions of unmeasured value: constitutional lib- 
erty, universal education and the true- theory of industry. 
The two former have become widespread. Our representa- 
tive system of government, assured forever by the sacred 
power of the constitution, is an outgrowth of puritanism. 
Our school system — every country side with its common 
school, every section with its college — is a blessing from 
the foresight and provision of puritanism. The Puritans 
settled in the most barren spot on the Atlantic coast. The 
soil was thin and unproductive, and the bleak winds and 
severe climate stunted and dwarfed vegetation. Yet their 
toil soon made their country noted for its productiveness, 
and with all the close and hard labor needed to bring their 
land to a condition of plenty they found time for mental 
training and culture ; and they used the fruits of their toil 
to purchase books, employ teachers and start colleges. This 
is the true theory of industry: not to accumulate money to 
lay unused in bank or chest, but to be employed in procur- 
ing mental, moral and social comforts. In this, as in other 



86 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

respects, puritanism has endeared itself to the country of 
its adoption. 

It is a queer truth, as Bancroft says, that the history of 
the American colonies is the history of the crimes of Europe. 
The tyranny and injustice of the Old World peopled the 
New with men prepared for great things by being nurtured 
in suffering and adversity. When the commerce of Holland 
was struck at by the English parliament, and by which act 
it was driven from English trade, it flew to America and 
strengthened its trade there. 

While the potentates of the thrones of Europe were 
occupying their time in theological quibbles, or in devising 
plans to suppress the growing spirit of liberty among their 
people, there grew up a little confederacy in the west of 
Europe which had been cut from Spain. It was unknown 
as possessing a nationality, and while nations around it were 
engaged in their own troubles, by skill and energy it rapidly 
took up the commercial traffic of the seas. This was Hol- 
land, which, by enterprise and freedom, had planted the 
Dutch flag on almost every coast, after carrying it over 
almost every sea. Their ships were sent to the harbors of 
Virginia, and were seen in the Indian Archipelago; they 
crept lazily under the sun of Africa, and pushed their way 
to far-ofT China and Japan. They went up the Hudson, and 
along the coast of South America. This little republic 
challenges the admiration of every person who loves to trace 
the echoes of truth and progress as they fly from age to age 
and land to land ; for, when the world was not looking, it 
took the ship of commerce, and with the aristocracy of skill 
summoned the trade of all climes to exchange. When 
Cromwell came to power in England he desired to make his 
country the greatest maritime nation on the globe. His 
first effort was to cripple the commerce of Holland. He 
was the means of having passed through parliament the 
famous navigation act of 165 1, which was an indirect stroke 
at Holland. According to it, the commerce of England 
with her colonies, and with all the rest of the world, was to 



UNWISE LEGISLATION. 8/ 

be carried in English ships, manned by EngHshmen. When 
protest was met by sneer, brave Httle Holland turned from 
trade to war, and in an incredibly short time some of the 
most daring naval engagements of history were following 
each other in quick succession. This was the war in which 
the glorious Tromp, when about to sail into an engagement, 
fired his countrymen with enthusiasm by fixing a broom to 
his mast, as indicating how Holland would sweep English 
commerce from the seas. If this figure was not fully car- 
ried out, neither did England drive Holland from the high- 
way of the ocean ; and if she succeeded in keeping Dutch 
ships from British ports, it was only at the heavier chagrin 
of seeing them push up the Hudson, settle in its fertile 
valley, and carry on an amicable trade with Virginia. 

In this, England showed the foolishness of her legislation. 
The very measures she constantly adopted to restrain, always 
resulted in enlarging the powers and privileges she desired 
to crush. The weapons the crown and parliament lifted to 
strike liberty and paralyze progress, God turned to fall with 
crushing effect upon the tyranny of the crown and' the big- 
otry of parliament. Holland was ambitious to establish the 
freedom of the seas. She was the first free-trade nation of 
modern times. While England and France were striving for 
the highway to America, as well as the monopoly of trade 
with the colonies, Holland gave no attention to either, but 
plied her boats along the entire eastern coast of the New 
World, from the Florida morasses to the Maine pineries ; 
showing that she believed in free trade by entering the very 
provinces over which England announced exclusive control. 
Under the Dutch company Hudson discovered the river 
which afterward bore his name. The Dutch from Holland 
made the banks of the Hudson a location for a thrifty com- 
mercial people. What the Puritans were to Massachusetts 
the Dutch were to New York, and the Hudson colony had a 
primeval and novel beauty as well as rich soil and favorable 
harbors along the river where to try the experiments of free 
trade. A distinguished writer has drawn a most beautiful 



88 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

pen-picture of the Hudson country as it appeared when 
occupied by the Holland Dutch : 

" Sombre forests shed a melancholy grandeur over the 
useless magnificence of nature, and hid in their deep shades 
the rich soil which the sun had never warmed. No axe had 
leveled the giant progeny of the crowded groves, in which 
the fantastic forms of withered limbs, that had been blasted 
and riven by lightning, contrasted strangely with the verdant 
freshness of a younger growth of branches. The wanton 
grape-vine, seeming by its own power to have sprung from 
the earth and to have fastened its leafy coils on the top of 
the tallest forest tree, swung in the air with every breeze, 
like the loosened shrouds of a ship. Trees might every- 
where be seen breaking from their root in the marshy soil, 
and threatening to fall with the first rude gust ; while the 
ground was strewn with the ruins of former forests, over 
which a profusion of wild flowers wasted their freshness in 
mockery of the gloom. Reptiles sported in the stagnant 
pools, or crawled unharmed over piles of mouldering trees. 
The spotted deer crouched among the thickets, but not to 
hide, for there was no pursuer; and there were none but 
wild animals to crop the uncut herbage of the productive 
prairies. Silence reigned, broken, it might have been, by 
the flight of land birds or the flapping of water-fowl, and 
rendered more dismal by the howl of beasts of prey. The 
streams, not yet limited to a channel, spread over sand-bars 
tufted with copses of willow, or waded through wastes of 
reeds, or slowly but surely undermined the groups of syca- 
mores that grew by their side. The smaller brooks spread 
out into sedgy swamps that were overhung by cloulds of 
mosquitoes ; masses of decaying vegetation fed the exhala- 
tions with the seeds of pestilence, and made the balmy air 
of the summer evening as deadly as it seemed grateful. 
Vegetable life and death were mingled hideously together, 
and the horrors of corruption frowned on the fruitless fer- 
tility of uncultivated nature. 

"And man, the occupant of the soil, was wild as the savage 



PRIMEVAL BEAUTIES OF NATURE. 89 

scene, in harmony with the rude nature by which he was sur- 
rounded ; a vagrant over the continent, in constant warfare 
with his fellow-man ; the bark of the birch his canoe ; strings 
of shells his ornaments, his record and his coin ; the roots of 
the forest among his resources for food:; his knowledge in 
architecture surpassed both in strength and durability by 
the skill of the beaver; bended saplings the beams of his 
house ; the branches and rind of trees its roof ; drifts of 
forest leaves his couch ; mats of bulrushes his protection 
against the winter's cold ; his religion the adoration of 
nature ; his morals the promptings of undisciplined instinct ; 
disputing with the wolves and bears the lordship of the soil, 
and dividing with the squirrel the wild fruits with which the 
universal woodlands abounded. 

" The history of a country is always modified by its climate, 
and in many of its features is determined by its geographical 
situation. The region which Hudson had discovered pos- 
sessed on the seaboard a harbor unrivaled in its advantages, 
having near its eastern boundary a river that admits the tide 
far into the interior; extending to the chain of the great 
lakes, which have their springs in the heart of the continent ; 
containing within its limits the sources of large rivers that 
flow to the Gulf of Mexico and to the bays of Chesapeake 
and of Delaware ; inviting to extensive internal intercourse 
by natural channels of which, long before Hudson anchored 
off Sandy Hook, even the warriors of the Five Nations 
availed themselves in their excursions to Quebec, to the 
Ohio or the Susquehanna ; with just sufificient difficulties 
to irritate and not enough to dishearten. New York united 
most fertile lands with the highest adaptation to foreign and 
domestic commerce. 

"The manner in which civilized man can develop the 
resources of a wild country, is contained in its physical charac- 
ter ; and the results which have been effected, are necessarily 
analogous to their causes. And how changed is the scene 
from that on which Hudson gazed ! The earth glows with 
the colors of civilization ; the banks of the streams are enam- 



go THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

eled with richest grasses ; woodlands and cultivated fields are 
harmoniously blended ; the birds of spring find their delight 
in orchards and trim gardens, variegated with choicest plants 
from every temperate zone, while the brilliant flowers of the 
tropics bloom from the windows of the green-house and the 
saloon. The yeoman, living like a good neighbor near the 
fields he cultivates, glories in the fruitfulness of the valleys, 
and counts with honest exultation the flocks and herds that 
browse in safety on the hills. The thorn has given way to 
the rosebush ; the cultivated vine clambers over rocks where 
the brood of serpents used to nestle ; while industry smiles 
at the changes she has wrought, and inhales the bland air 
which now has health on its wings. 

"And man is still in harmony with nature, which he has 
subdued, cultivated and adorned. For him the rivers that 
flow to remotest climes, mingle their waters ; for him the 
lakes gain new outlets to the ocean ; for him the arch spans 
the flood, and science spreads iron pathways to the recent 
wilderness ; for him the hills yield up the shining marble and 
the enduring granite ; for him the forests of the interior 
come down in immense rafts ; for him the marts of the city 
gather the produce of every clime, and libraries collect the 
works of genius of every language and every age. The pas- 
sions of society are chastened into purity; manners are 
made benevolent by civilization ; and the virtue of the coun- 
try is the guardian of its peace. Science investigates the 
powers of every plant and mineral, to find medicines for dis- 
ease ; schools* of surgery rival the establishments of the Old 
World. An active daily press, vigilant from party interests, 
free even to dissoluteness, watches the progress of society 
and communicates every fact that can interest humanity; 
the genius of letters begins to unfold his powers in the warm 
sunshine of public favor. And while idle curiosity may take 
its walk in shady avenues by the ocean side, commerce 
pushes its wharves into the sea, blocks up the wide rivers with 
its fleets, and sending its ships, the pride of naval architect- 



CHARACTER OF THE HOLLAND PEOPLE. 9 1 

ure, to every clime, defies every wind, outrides every tempest 
and invades every zone." 

The emigrants from Holland were the manufacturing" 
prophets of the land. Their mechanical skill was proverbial 
throughout the world. Their honesty, and industrial lives 
laid the foundation for the manufacturing and maritime 
wealth of New York. Wherever Holland has planted a 
colony for the last three hundred years, it has been distin- 
guished for its success. In all their colonies the Dutch had 
been noted for their equity of laws, industrial instinct and 
simple piety. Succeeding in transforming Holland from a 
lowland of marshes and bogs to fertile fields of remarkable 
productiveness, and all by their indomitable patience, skill 
and toil, they seemed to have acquired the genius for sub- 
duing all barriers to progress, and overcoming the difficulties 
standing in the way of civilization. This character of the 
people reacted upon their moral composition. They were 
positive in the faith and evidence of a religious heroism of 
sterling quality. Holland had long been a fostering place 
for the unfortunate and oppressed of other lands. They 
came to Holland from the German states, from beyond the 
Rhine, and from Italy. Following the sad Bartholomew's 
eve of France, many Huguenots passed into her welcoming 
arms. When England was no longer a home for the Puri- 
tans, Holland bid them welcome. In this way the country 
became a nursery for the infant reforms of the world, and 
Holland deserves the praise of rocking the cradle of more 
than one great idea until it could stand mature before the 
world and fight its own right to live. 

This general character given the Holland people by these 
various classes pouring upon them from the oppressed of 
other nations, broadened their views and gave them a dis- 
position mild and generous. The rights of others came to 
be as dear to them as their own, and they learned that laws 
for the whole people must be so made as to infringe on the 
rights of none. No people that settled in our country were 
less influenced by the spirit of persecution than the Dutch. 



92 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The same rights they claimed for themselves they accorded 
to others. As they welcomed the distressed of the world 
to Holland, so when they spread their commerce over the 
world they could see without a feeling of envy or bitterness 
the flags of other nations in the same harbor with their own. 
When they settled in the Hudson valley they regarded alias 
their friends until they had shown themselves foes. They 
invited the persecuted of every clime and creed to their new 
colony. They gave special inducements to mechanics, 
recognizing that manufacturing should early become a 
marked feature of the new country, in order to be 
independent of the rich monopolies in manufacturing in the 
Old World, and in a few years New Amsterdam was an 
industrious town ; lumber shipped over the sea ; the whale 
caught off the coast ; the vine, mulberry and grain planted ; 
flocks- raised ; and brick, so long shipped from across the 
ocean, was now made at home. 

And so this Dutch people came not only with correct 
ideas of law to impress upon posterity, but in an especial 
manner endowed to start the new country in the channels of 
productive industry. To the Dutch is largely due the 
gratitude that New England is the great manufacturing 
section of the land. 

While the poisoned arrow, the blazing torch and the 
blood-seeking tomahawk of the Indian held the first settlers 
of our country in constant fear of life, it is an old saying to 
which there has appeared no contradiction, "that not a drop 
of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian." This is cer- 
tainly a commentary on the gentleness and kindness of the 
Quaker character, and no pictures pretending to show the 
different figures which moved with force in the first great act 
of American nationality could be complete without that of 
the Quaker, with his simple garb, mild eye, and benign 
bearing. No people so well practiced the teaching of 
charity, or in times which were calculated to stir men's blood 
kept themselves more serene and peaceful. Surrounded by 
injustice, they were ever just. At a time when wrath was 



QUAKER PECULIARITIES. 93 

almost a virtue, they were as tender as a gentle woman. 
When revenge was almost a part of justice, the mercy of the 
Quaker was proverbial. When war and strife opened the 
way for massacre, the Quaker went around only with his 
bible. When harmed themselves, they never demanded 
redress but sent a message of kindness. When struck upon 
one cheek, they veritably fulfilled the letter of the Saviour's 
command, if not the spirit, by turning the other. The 
Quaker character is an anomaly in the moral history of the 
race. They stand out before the moral philosopher a 
mystery of the turbulent times which produced them. 
Cruelty, tyranny and oppression were the forces that brought 
out the amazing kindness of spirit, gentleness of manner and 
sweetness of disposition which made the Quaker people. 
The rise of the Quakers was one of the unlooked for results 
of the revolution, produced by the spirit of persecution 
which reigned for two centuries. It was a consequence of 
the effort of the mind to fully emancipate itself from 
obnoxious restraint and unjust laws. It was a protest against 
the long reign of the bigotry of tyranny made by men and 
women who were justly impatient with the slow process of 
liberty and the tardy advances of right and truth. It was 
an extreme movement in that it demanded at once the 
bestowal of man's full rights. All reforms move slow around 
the dial of progress, and it requires a long while for any one 
idea or truth to become fully emancipated. 

In England the original Quakers were extreme in 
peculiarity of dress and manner, as well as in ideas. They, 
unlike the Puritans, first considered it wrong to engage in 
politics and avoided all political conversation ; their reform 
being rather of a social and religious character than political. 
Spirituality of mind and careful deportment seemed to be 
the principal things for which they strived. 

When they were persecuted beyond even passive endur- 
ance in England, they repaired to Massachusetts where the 
persecution against them was made still more intense. 
Under the general law against heresy they had their trunks 



94 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

and chests broken open, and though nothing but suspicion 
could be found against them, they were imprisoned, whipped, 
holes were punched through their tongues, while three or 
four were actually killed. But it must be said in partial 
mitigation of this persecution, that the Quakers by their 
extreme and fanatic manner and conduct at this time pro- 
voked Puritan wrath. They seemed to solicit persecution by 
their persistent efforts to put themselves in its way. Wher- 
ever the oppression was the heaviest, there would flock the 
largest numbers, holding congratulatory meetings that they 
were permitted to become martyrs for the truth's sake. 
This was the foolishness of vanity. They thought more of 
their fanatic opinions than of the cause of truth and justice. 
This was the unheroic age of the Quakers. Their leaders 
were mostly ignorant men and fanatic women, full of preju- 
dice, but it is to their everlasthng glory that they shortly 
outgrew this provincial vanity of opinion, produced better 
leaders, and entered upon a career of unexampled honor, 
integrity and purity. 

By oppression, Spain expelled the Moors; France the 
Huguenots, and England, by the force of her tyranny, the 
Puritans ; so Massachusetts, inheriting too large a leaven of 
the old spirit of the persecution of opinion, banished the 
Quakers, when she could not control their faith by law. 
Unable to subdue them by statute or by threat, she could 
stoop to drive them from her province by the sword. 

Ignoble procedure ! But it was a remnant of the old 
despotism of former centuries; and which shows how 
extremely dif^cult it is to entirely, except by slow degrees 
and after long efforts, free the mind of all predjudice and 
disenthrall it from all narrowness of opinion. 

Having fled from England, and being driven from Massa- 
chusetts, the Quakers finally took up permanent residence 
under Penn in Pennsylvania, and here was tried successfully 
the experiment of a community, on the individual con- 
viction of moral right. Here the measures of equality were 
put to a correct test. Intellectual freedom, unfettered by 



A SIMPLE MORAL CREED. 95 

school or tenet, was claimed as the inalienable right of every 
man. The one final resort of authority on the rightn€ss of 
\ ideas, activities and motives was the inner light, or the voice 
of God in the soul. This inner light is believed to be in 
every heart, therefore gives equal rights to all and is to be 
the only guide to virtue and conduct. This is only in 
another form the wisdom of Plato and the teaching of Socra- 
tes ; and the latter from his ideality of belief and life may not 
unfairly be looked upon as the ancient brother of Penn. 
This inner light is the constant standard of right and good- 
ness, hence the freedom of the conscience is man's most 
sacred privilege, and no power can justly throw a shackle 
around it. Upon this freedom of the conscience rests the 
progress of society; hence the Quakers were true champions 
for the freedom of mind. They claimed emancipation from 
the hootings of superstition, disavowed any belief in ghosts 
or witchcraft, and perhaps stand forth at this period as the 
most free of all the early colonists from all those narrow 
prejudices of old beliefs, which cling in some direction to 
nearly all reformers. 

In the best period of Quakerism it was as near perfect as 
any moral system ever known in the world. Judgment upon 
opinion or conduct was not to be formed by the partial mind, 
but from the eternal light which never can be wrong. Their 
creed was as simple as their faith ; they did not fetter them- 
selves with the mazes of controverted and vague doctrines, 
but only with those plain duties revealed to them by the 
inner light. 

They were a people who honored truth, not men ; who fol- 
lowed principles, not passing opinions; who sought virtue 
and honesty, not power or position. Cromwell paid them 
the tribute that he could not win them with gifts, honors, 
offices or places. They stood most supreme in their fixed 
allegiance to a life of purity and simplicity. Given to 
frugality, they were not addicted to accumulating money. 
The charity of giving was a grace among them. They 
thought it best for men not to be very wealthy, for wealth 



96 THE SCIE^XE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

brings luxury, and luxury tyranny. The supremacy of mind 
over all other powers was to them a cardinal teaching; but 
the supremacy of conscience over mind a greater still. Here 
they made a reform in education, where before they despised 
learning. Opposed to war, they believed in the ability of 
justice to defend itself. They objected to take the sword, 
and looked forward to a civilization so fully under sway 
of this inner light of truth as to right its own mistakes, 
correct its own vices, subdue its own crimes — and all 
without resort to war. 

The Quaker had a firm faith in progress, and this was an 
effectual cure for all feelings of despondency during seasons 
of distress and persecution, and produced a moral courage 
which hasiDeen the admiration of every student of Quaker 
history and philosophy. 

All this anticipates the Quaker view of government. All 
law based upon God's inner life was supreme for all men. 
God is in the conscience of every man. Hence all distinc- 
tions of birth, blood or rank are unjust and tyrannous, 
and every man is equal to his fellow-man. The Quaker 
would not take off his hat to any man ; he held himself to 
be the peer of any other man by the divine right of 
being a man. 

On such views as these the Penn colony was easily estab- 
lished. Peace was made with the Indians; the colonists 
were contented in their freedom and equality. When a 
form of government was to be determined upon Penn called 
a general convention, with equal privileges to all on the 
floor. The people proposed to assemble by representatives. 
In three days the legislation was completed. The Inward 
Light dictated a code ; God was declared lord of the con- 
science ; the rule of equality was adopted ; an honest man's 
word was as good as his oath; the Swedes, Finns and Dutch 
were vested with rights like unto themselves, and the simple 
form of government was effected. Lawrence Cook said : 
" It is the best day we have ever seen." It was a red letter 
day in the progress of the human race. 



J 



SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIANS. 97 

The Scotch Presbyterians found a retreat and a refuge 
in east New Jersey. A dark page of Scotland's history is 
that on which is given the sad tale of the cruelties by which 
the Stuarts aimed to extirpate the pure faith of the Scot- 
tish people. James II. must be regarded as a character of 
cupidity, selfishness and brutality. The Covenanters were 
hunted down like beasts of prey. Gibbets were erected in 
all the villages to frighten the people ; the overflowing jails 
were emptied to sell their inmates as slaves, and at last, 
when not a foot of Scottish soil was free to Scotland's men 
and women of virtue and honor, and maddened by the 
murder of their friends, driven from caves to morasses, and 
from them to the mountains, the outraged Presbyterians 
turned upon their persecutors like dogs driven to bay. But 
they were too weak. They were ferreted out by spies and 
were shot on the highways, in the fields, or as they were at 
prayer. Fugitives were tried by a jury of soldiers, and 
executed in groups on the roads ; women, fastened to stakes 
below the tide-water, were drowned by the rising waters ; 
dungeons were crowded with people famishing for want of 
water and air. The humanity of the government was lost, 
and Scotland was well-nigh ruined by the pestilence of 
outrageous oppression. 

Under such an intolerable regime it is not strange that 
the Scottish Presbyterians, blending a love for liberty with a 
love for their religious faith, should leave their native high- 
lands and take refuge in the New World, which was well 
understood to be ah asylum for the downtrodden of all 
nations. To east New Jersey they hurried and gave a 
character to the state, which is not yet effaced. 

When the lives of the Boston people were threatened 
by the British hirelings, the Philadelphia Presbyterians were 
the first to cry a protest, claiming that it was a religious 
duty to resist tyranny. When British arms clanged in the 
Baltimore streets, the Presbyterians were warm in their 
denunciation, and preached that resistance to tyrants was 
obedience to God. 
7 



98 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

England was dear to South Carolina for commercial rea- 
sons. The exports of the colony to England were worth a 
couple of millions a year. Her people, avoiding city life, 
lived in elegance, and plenty on their large estates, rapidly 
grew wealthy, and looked upon England as a benefactor. 
Yet these Scotch-Irish Presbyterian planters, loving their 
civil rights more than their large trade with England, pre- 
pared for a defense of their liberties. Reduced to the 
dilemma of holding their liberties at the disposal of the 
British will, and continuing their happy commercial relations, 
or to hold freedom's dear right, as vested in them by the 
God of their faith, upon which no man had claim, their 
choice was soon made and soon announced. They knew 
they were to decide the old question of their religious rights 
which had been rudely taken away from them in the Low- 
lands of Scotland. 

These Scotch-Irish Presbyterians had not only the courage 
of their convictions, but the heroism to defend them ; and 
without waiting, as did the other colonies, for Boston's 
appeal, they determined to deliver themselves from the des- 
potism of parliament. Well informed in both moral and 
civil law, honest and fearless in expressing their views, and 
Avithal taught by their former experience that it was right 
to maintain the truth with the sacrifice of property and life, 
these people set their indomitable will for a settlement of 
the vexed question of their religious and civil rights, and 
that at once. For a century and a half this burning idea of 
personal rights had been trying to work its way to the front 
in Germany, France, Holland and England, and so far Hol- 
land was the country where it was realized ; England, going^ 
yet farther than France, passed through a period of perse- 
cution that will forever disgrace her records. Pushed to 
desperation, her persecuted subjects in America, the sons of 
persecuted and murdered fathers and mothers, thirsted for 
an adjustment of these wrongs. And the first voice for 
independence raised in public came from the Scotch-Irish 



POWERFUL MORAL FORCES. 99 

Presbyterians of South Carolina ; and South CaroHna's course 
afterward in the field showed that her boast was not 
an idle one. 

The impress of character given this commonwealth by the 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians is felt yet, and is of a most posi- 
tive nature. They were a people of a stout purpose, moral 
conviction and undoubted courage. Trained by cruel treat- 
ment to hate oppression and tyranny, inheriting from their 
fathers the spirit of the martyr, learning to depend upon 
themselves and to trust in God, they were regarded as the 
most unflinching in their position. They were among the 
true builders of nations, the founders of states. The true 
legislators of a new country are the citizens of the realm, 
and nowhere in the history of the rise of nations is this more 
observable than in the manner in which the early laws of 
South Carolina were shaped by the Presbyterians. 

From this reference to the different people who emigrated 
to the western world, it will be seen what were the controll- 
ing forces entering into our national life. An analysis of 
these powerful moral forces has been important, in order that 
a correct estimate may be made of the national character. 

From France came the distressed Huguenots with their 
spirit of murmur against the tyranny that would persecute 
the conscience of men, when dictating religious duty. The 
free spirit of the New World developed them in this right- 
eous complaint, and the sentiment of the Huguenots was 
engrafted on the germ of the coming commonwealth. 

From England came the Puritans and Quakers, each leav- 
ing the fatherland for conscience-sake ; loving truth more 
than home, respecting God more than the king. Their ideas 
of civil and moral freedom can be traced in all the constitu- 
tions of the colonies. 

From Holland, for purpose of trade, came the Dutch 
merchants and artisans, men of moral principle as well as 
business thrift, with the fire of the old Zwinglian and Calvin 
reformation burning in their hearts. They were true reform- 
ers, believing in progress and humanity. They gave a spirit 



100 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of integrity to the country that insured universal honor 
abroad. 

From Scotland came the Covenanters, and with their un- 
flinching heroism and moral purpose they greatly elevated 
the social order and gave insurance of right principles to the 
political order of the new nation about to be born. 

No such elements of moral strength, political wisdom and 
personal freedom ever before entered into the formation of 
a nation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

INFLUENCE OF LEADING CHARACTERS. 

THE influence of great nainds in forming national life 
is immeasurable, yet it is a known quantity in forming 
a correct view of the birth of a nation. Here and there in 
the progress of the race a figure comes to the front just 
when needed, and by personal force or superior talent leads 
thought and action. Such are not only interesting to study, 
but may be regarded as blessings. The manner and firm- 
ness with which they impress their thought upon their age 
is of such a character that it sometimes lingers through centu- 
ries. Zoroaster, the great Persian teacher and reformer, 
impressed his moral teaching so well upon his people that 
thirty centuries have not been enough to efface it. Confu- 
cius gave lessons to China which yet shape Chinese legisla- 
tion and direct Chinese morals. The laws of Moses will 
never lose their influence, nor Avill those of Solon or Lycur- 
gus be forgot. The Grecian philosophers of the Socratic 
age yet hold the imperial respect of all thinkers. Homer is 
remembered equally with the prosperity of Greece. Rome 
cannot be in the mind without thinking of Caesar. Italian 
civilization was glorified by her Dante and Tasso in poetry, 
Angelo, Raphael and Parmegiano in painting and sculpture. 
The formation of the early English civilization was greatly 
due to Alfred the Great, and the justice of his laws, in a 
rude age, was a compliment to his generous character. Peter 
the Great was a benefactor who lifted Russia almost to the 
dignity of a great people in a single age. Napoleon's mili- 
tary career will never cease to affect the nations of Southern 
Europe, and the peculiar and unlooked for tendencies he 
shaped will never return to their starting point. 

Circumstances make men, but men in turn direct circum- 

101 



I02 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

stances ; and the course of empires is the path of ideas and 
motives held by leading men and women. The American 
nation is no exception, but, in its origin, shows the influence 
of leading minds in civil, moral and commercial affairs. 
Bacon had introduced a system of philosophy which led men 
largely away from the speculative custom of the schools, and 
produced the habit of experimental reasoning. This brought 
men to considering facts and conditions already existing, 
and how to manage present conditions to aid progress. 
Bacon was one of the few who, combined together, broke the 
age of myths and theories and introduced the practical age. 
Luther, Calvin and Zwingle taught the world the needed 
lesson that religion concerned this life quite as much as 
some other: Luther successfully circulating the scriptures 
among the people ; Zwingle purifying politics with morality; 
Calvin founding the common school system of the world; 
three men, who, through their influences, worked powerfully 
upon the American nation during the days of its growth. 

The Huguenots of France", hunted down by tyrants at 
court, had an example of virtue and liberty which gave them 
assurance that virtue, faith and perseverance would bring 
victory. This was a true apostle of liberty, though only a 
girl. Li the village of Domremy, on the borders of Lor- 
raine, was born and raised Joan of Arc. Inclined to silence, 
she spent her time in prayer and meditation. At this time 
England had, in the spirit of unwonted conquest, extended 
her power over the whole north of France. The sad condi- 
tion of the country under English rule first aroused her pity, 
then fired her energy. She lingered awhile in planning, then 
with patriotism and piety shining in her face she begun the 
deliverance of her country. At the head of the army on a 
black charger, clothed in a coat of mail, carrying a white 
standard of her own design, embroidered with lilies, and hav- 
ing on the one side the image of God seated on the clouds 
and holding the world in his hand ; possessed of grand, mel- 
ancholy eyes, she led to victory by the force of an inde- 
scribable charm. At the gates of Orleans the brutal Endish 



WILLIAM PENN. IO3 

learned that the French hberties were safe in the keeping of 
the maid of Lorraine. Her spirit never died out and her 
influence never waned among the Huguenot peasantry of 
Lorraine, and by them her name was carried and cherished 
in the New World. 

Among the great characters who had to do with prepar- 
ing the germs for the American nation, William Penn, the 
Quaker, was great in motive, principle and life. Inheriting 
from father and grandfather preferences for the sea, he was 
filled with a restless spirit, which moved him to long for a 
career in the western world. At Oxford he was converted 
to the Quaker faith by listening to their preaching. Expelled 
from college and driven from home, he wandered in other 
lands. In France he was infatuated with the religion and 
philosophy of the Huguenots; in London he became skilled 
in English law. Because he spoke in favor of the right of free- 
dom Df speech, he was indicted for trial. His own just plea 
before the jury secured his acquittal, but he was returned to 
prison. This trial became memorable in judicial annals. 
While in Newgate prison Penn addressed to parliament and 
the nation a plea for liberty, which was strong in language 
and argument. He says of the Quakers: "If we cannot 
obtain the olive branch of toleration, we are resolved by 
patience to out-weary persecution." 

When the trial of Fox, the founder of the Quakers, came 
up, Penn was again heard in the court room. Bigotry had 
come to be cruelty; and Penn, in denouncing it, exhibited 
a profound sagacity and gave a deliverance on the question 
of the rights of the conscience in relation to the peace and 
happiness of the state, which England was not soon to 
forget. The sta};esmen of the world soon learned to know 
Penn as a constitutional lawyer of great merit. 

When Penn despaired of English liberties at home, he 
determined to try an experiment in the New World. He 
was by this time a man of wide experience, versatile 
learning, deep and broad in his spirit of freedom, and withal 
a most cheerful disposition. He was conversant with 'the 



I04 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

struggles of the peasanty in France, Germany and Holland 
and felt himself directed to establish a civil community on 
great moral principles. The praise due this great man and 
benefactor is, that in an age when selfish and bigoted leaders 
turned tyranny and ridicule loose to hunt down the liberties 
of the forsaken and downcast; when no home was known 
for freedom ; when no asylum was secure for the distressed 
to seek refuge in ; when popular rights were seen to be ship- 
wrecked — William Penn did not falter or hesitate, but in a 
greatness of energy and magnanimity of purpose, unknown 
in all the world before, he cherished still the idea of man's 
destiny resting in popular liberties, and determined to build 
"a free colony for all mankind." His greatness consisted in 
his wonderful approach to absolute perfection as a moral and 
political philosopher. Nearer right than Plato, his plan was 
not fanciful or impracticable, but rested on the simple idea 
that truth was the common inheritance of the race, therefore 
all men were entitled to its full illuminations. He saw 
freedom, not as a political license, but as a blessing to be 
sought after for its intrinsic loveliness. 

Pennsylvania was founded by Penn in an effort to realize 
his holy experiment, and it stands before the gaze of the 
political world as the most magnificent monument, ever 
testifying of individual worth and merit. It was a great 
commonwealth founded on the two principles of liberty of 
conscience in religion and civil freedom. 

His treaty with the Indians at Shakamaxon's elm tree, 
was not for the purchase of land, but, was to recognize the 
equal rights of all men. He was the greatest peacemaker of 
all time. This treaty of peace and fraternity had no 
witnesses but river, sky and woods, without signature or seal, 
with no record kept of it, yet the simple men of the wilder- 
ness returned to their wigwams to tell the covenant around 
the council fire. And for generations the Indians kept 
sacred the tradition of William Penn and his gentle words. 
While all the colonies were in perpetual war and strife with 
the Indians, and every cabin had to act as a fort, not a drop 



INFLUENCE OF A MAGNIFICENT MAN. 105 

of Quaker blood was ever shed by the red men during the 
Hfe of Penn. Penn's speech to that ignorant people was a 
gem of charity. "We meet," he says, "on the broad path- 
way of good will and good faith ; no advantage shall be 
taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I 
will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their 
children too severely ; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. 
The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a 
chain, for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree 
might break. We are the same as if one man's body were 
to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and blood." 

As a legislator in the new province he had the rare good 
sense of carrying his principles into effect without any com- 
promise with persons of ambition, or becoming inveigled 
with fortune hunters. His eminent piety led him to make 
religion the corner stone of his polity, while his strong 
humanity influenced him, right in an age of bigotry and 
prejudice, to extend impartially to all races and creeds the 
same and equal rights. In this sense he was the most 
cosmopolitan man of modern times. 

Penn's political code was more influential, perhaps, than 
that of any other one man, in the formation of the federal 
government. His colony bound the northern and southern 
settlements in strong relations. While Philadelphia became 
the birth place of American independence and the pledge of 
union, the spirit of Penn seemed to dispatch humanity to 
gather the children of misfortune and invite them to settle 
in this asylum for the oppressed. Peter, the great Russian 
reformer, said of this commonwealth : " How happy must be 
a community instituted on these principles!" When 
Frederick of Prussia, a century afterward, read the history of 
Penn's colony he remarked that it was perfect. 

We have devoted this space to Penn because we have felt 
that he was one of the most magnificent o-f men, and that his 
influence was strong in forming the character of American 
national life. He has been too much ignored ; he cannot be 
too highly estimated. 



Io6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

In the New World, shaping the course of a mighty revo- 
lution in government, were many men great in wisdom, 
purpose and the management of affairs, and who deserve a 
passing notice in reviewing the great characters of influence, 
from whose minds and hearts the ingenious commonwealth 
of America sprung. 

In the middle of the last century, teaching the village 
school of Worcester, for sixty dollars for the season, was the 
son of a farmer, who in the shady thickets and gloomy 
grottoes mused upon America becoming a great empire. 
This young dreamer was John Adams. After one of these 
spells of meditation, he said : " I always consider the settle- 
ment of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening 
of a grand scene and design of providence for the illumina- 
tion of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part 
of mankind all over the earth." He had a remarkable grasp 
of intellect and keen foresight. His character was noble and 
his manner was dignified. As a patriot, he surrendered his 
time, energy and scholarly ability to the service of his coun- 
try. His influence was the greatest among pre-revolutionary 
statesmen. Prior to the war for independence, declaring that 
when the time for the colonies to set up for themselves came 
the united force of all Europe would not be able to subdue 
them ; before the French nation explaining the American 
principles of liberty; at the court of England representing 
the federal government of America; or seated in the presi- 
dential chair of the new republic, everywhere the force of his 
great intellect made him respected, admired and revered. 

Ethan Allen had reduced heroism to a principle of 
patriotism. When war was seen in the distance, he boasted 
not a vain boast in declaring that the regiment of Green 
Mountain Boys would greatly assist the cause. That he 
should be remembered as capable of doing great deeds was 
amply shown at Ticonderoga. With a hundred of his moun- 
tain men he crossed the lake, and in the shadow of the fort 
made by the first beams of the morning sun, Allen addressed 
his men : " Friends and fellow-soldiers, we must this morning 



VALOR AND ELOQUENCE. lO/ 

quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this 
fortress." As he met the commander, asking him by what 
authority the surrender was demanded, he replied : " In the 
name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." 
And the fort, which cost the British forty million dollars, 
several campaigns and many lives, was won in a few minutes 
by this intrepid man whose greatness consisted in the rare 
quality for meeting emergencies and commanding sudden 
and unexpected forces, so as to gain where failure seemed 
more natural. Brave Ethan Allen preached patriotism by 
the example of a chivalrous life, and through the Vermont 
hills and valleys his name was a battle cry for freedom. 

A great man for both England and America was Edmund 
Burke, the man of most imperial eloquence and the most 
splendid debater of modern times. He was conservative 
enough to be classed with the old school of statesmen ; he 
was progressive enough to be regarded by the apostles of 
the new times just opening. His argument against taxing 
the colonies was never surpassed in parliament. He spoke 
for the rights of America in such terms and power, that the 
distressed in the colonies thanked him and took courage. 
America never had, in an Englishman in the British parlia- 
ment pleading for just laws and privileges, such a defender 
as Burke. Demosthenes before the Athenian citizens, plead- 
ing for the liberty of the Grecian cities, was not a superior to 
Burke, standing with the dignity of one conscious of being 
in the right, and with his peers, the greatest of the realm, 
frowning upon him ; yet, with his boundless wealth of 
thought and language asking that justice be done the weak 
children across the sea, lest the day come when they grow 
strong enough not only to ask for justice, but to take it. 
Apostles of liberty in America became more bold when they 
saw the greatest parliamentary orator England ever produced 
lift his hand in their behalf. 

The full liberties of America can never be fully admired 
without knowing the half-liberties of England in the last 
century. And whoever would study the half-liberties of 



I08 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

England in their best aspect ; the wonderful intermixture of 
privilege and restraint ; of aristocratic prerogative and popular 
freedom ; of rights declared, but curtailed by bigots and 
tyrants on throne and in parliament ; of the gradual rising of 
constitutional authority ; of the fixed adherence to old forms 
and methods, yet liberal tendencies in the government ; of 
the growing respect for the common people — whoever would 
study these half-liberties and form a just estimate of them, 
must spend some time in the fascinating study of Edmund 
Burke. The grace of his manner, the imperial bearing of his 
style, the power of his logic and the justice of his arguments 
entitle him to the rank of the greatest jurist of the world. 

Among the most influential men who shaped the course 
of the new empire, none were more potential and impressive 
in manner and force of character, and none more noted than 
Franklin. He was the best political philosopher of this 
time. The common sense of his sayings and writings have 
become a part of the political wisdom of the past. One of 
the most practical men of the world, he shouldered the great 
questions which burdened the colonists, and showed how to 
bear them. He was the first to propose a plan for confeder- 
ation. His plan of union contained the true fundamental 
parts of the federal government, viz: the domestic rights of 
the states and sovereignty of the general government. He 
was the busiest man of the many who were assisting the new 
nation into life. He was sent to England to effect a com- 
promise, and when compromise was impossible, he took a 
scat in the continental congress, where he served on the 
committees. He was appointed superintendent of the postal 
usystem ; prepared the appeal to France ; was appointed com- 
missioner, with two others, to Canada; was delegate to the 
general congress which called a constitutional convention ; 
was one of the committee which drew up the declaration of 
independence ; and was president of the Pennsylvania con- 
vention to draft a constitution. He was selected by con- 
gress to treat with Howe, and when France was inclined to 
favor the cause of the colonies, he was sent to the court of 



THE PHILOSOPHER FRANKLIN. IO9 

Louis XVI. to solicit his aid, and he became the most popu- 
lar man in France. No American ever did as much as 
Franklin to secure the recognition of America in the family 
of nations. On returning to America he was elected several 
years in succession governor of Pennsylvania. He was also 
a member of the national convention of which Washington 
was president, and which convened to frame a constitution 
for the new republic. To the influence of Franklin and 
Washington may be ascribed the final adoption of the con- 
stitution, which is still the fundamental law of the land. 
One of the most able and ingenious parts of that constitu- 
tion, in view of the perplexing inequalities of population in 
the different colonies, was the feature which gave the states 
equal representation in the senate, and in the house repre- 
sentation according to population, and it was a thought 
of Franklin. 

Franklin was active in organizing, and was president of 
the first society formed in the world for the abolition of 
slavery, and as its president, wrote and put his signature to 
the first remonstrance against slavery addressed to an Amer- 
ican congress. 

In the many different capacities in which he ably aided 
in the formation of the new confederacy, his energy was the 
strongest and his wisdom the most sensible brought to bear. 
Whether as a statesman or philosopher, a legislator or printer, 
a diplomat or constitutional reasoner, a commercial councelor 
or moral teacher, his judgment was final, as his logic had 
been unanswerable. The country he helped to start in its 
ways of progress and prosperity owes much to his vast ser- 
vices, in all of which he seemed to be actuated by motives 
of humanity and the promptings of patriotism. His efforts 
to dignify toil by his proverbs and maxims concerning labor, 
and by his most conclusive example in laboring himself, did 
a great deal to impress the nobility of work upon the grow- 
ing generation, which long and well cherished his life of 
service to his country. No man has ever lived whose life 
and character have been more generally studied and admired. 



no THE SCIE^XE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Among our nation's founders none can stand higher in 
love than Washington. No man of pubhc service has shown 
to the open eyes of an admiring posterity such splendid 
qualities of character and ripeness of wisdom ; no other man 
whose fame seems to grow faster than the flow of years, and 
whose honor it seems " Time with his own eternal lips shall 
sing." The life of Washington stands foremost among the 
front leaders of American progress. It was pure, unselfish 
and earnest. It was not a life that showed the ripple of 
shallow waters, but the heavy swell that exhibited the flow 
of deep waters. Not one dishonoring charge has ever been 
cast against his life, except it be by his country's enemies. 
This is a eulogy on a public man that has never been sur- 
passed. It throws a lustre of the brightest light upon an 
excellent character. 

That character after the trying ordeal of public scrutiny 
for one half century presents an unmoved front to the world's 
admiration. It was put in the severe crucible of the effort 
to revolutionize human government, and came out unscarred. 
That effort was pronounced right by the second sober thought 
of the world. It was put to hard test in camp, battle and 
council chamber and never discovered to his critics a mark. 
That character was elevated. It was worthy, and equip- 
ped with all the qualities requisite for a leader of principles 
and men. 

From the outset, his honor and his country stood fore- 
most in his affections ; the first he guarded with scrupulous 
care, and for the last he offered up his life and fortune. His 
devotion to liberty, as assailed by British tyranny, was so 
pure, so unmixed with any selfish feeling, that no suspicion 
or wrong could weaken its force. On the nation's heart, let 
it beat never so wildly, he leaned with solemn trust. Love 
of country was sure to rule every hour in his life. Taking 
side irrevocably with the right, he was ready for any sacri- 
fice, prepared for any trial. 

In moral elevation no warrior of ancient or modern times 
approaches him. The principles of religion were engrafted 



WASHINGTON. 1 1 1 

deeply in his heart, and as there was no stain on his blade, 
he could go direct from the hot battle-field to the commun- 
ion table. In the darkest night of the countrj^s adversity, 
its highest hope was Washington's trust in the power of 
divine right and the confidence unshaken that the truth 
would eventually prevail ; because truth was right and just. 

It has been given to but few to hold in such well-balanced 
proportions the traits and principles of a high moral char- 
acter. If called to the chair of an exact standard of what 
we may conceive to be an upright character for a public man, 
and examined, not one of the great masters of civilization 
perhaps would pass with such high credit. None but what 
show a weakness in some direction, either private or public, or 
both. But Washington had fewer inequalities of character, 
and a more choice union of virtues, than perchance ever fell 
to the lot of any man. 

His spirit of sacrifice for his country is unequaled in 
history. It was no sudden burst of enthusiasm, or outbreak 
of indignation against oppression, but a calm, settled purpose 
to save his country or perish with it. Patriotism was not 
merely a feeling or emotion with him ; it was a principle. 
It was a mighty undercurrent in his being. His love to his 
country was the measure of his success. He was loyal to 
her truths and always true to her rulers. No matter if the 
plans of his superiors displeased him, he never faltered. He 
was never known to raise to power any one, because a 
relation or friend. During his long service, when he had so 
many opportunities to render favor, he never gave a position 
to a friend if he knew one better qualified. The most 
magnanimous and republican spirit perhaps that our country 
has ever had in her halls of power. 

In his home life he never lost sight of his duty as a citi- 
zen and friend of his country, or his still nearer relations of 
• family and servants. Many of the most important improve- 
ments of the country in after years are traceable to his wise 
foresight. The welfare of the country was ever a matter of 
careful solicitude to him. Prompt in responding to every 



112 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

call made on his time or his means in rendering any service 
required, he measured his far-reaching intellect with every 
movement, and with a mind which we are almost inclined to 
call more than human found a place of release from every 
difficulty. Nowhere did he show this to better advantage 
than in extricating his army from dangerous localities. In 
maneuvering a large body of men, while penned in by a 
strong enemy, and successfully retreating without loss, he 
often amazed the military scholars, and almost turned defeat 
into victory. The two great needs during the Revolution 
were money to carry on, and a central wisdom to direct, the 
war; Morris largely supplied the first and, at times, Wash- 
ington wholly the latter. The imperative claims of his 
country and duty to his God constituted the highest duty he 
knew to himself. After a careful examination and a minute 
analysis of character as derived from the best sources, we 
must honestly render the conclusion that prudence, firmness, 
a wise judgment and an immovable justice — each controll- 
ing, neither subverting, the other — made Washington the 
greatest leader America has known thus far in her history. 
In the study of his life and character the verdict must be 
given : he was truly a great and good man. 

As the country which he saved grows older, and the 
government which he attended in its infancy becomes 
matured, the genius of a high standard of right, lofty idea of 
human privileges and impulsive, fiery scorn for human wrong 
will be more and more perceptible. According to the opin- 
ion of an eminent English statesman, the veneration which 
we pay to Washington " will be a test of the progress which 
our race has made in wisdom and virtue." 

Jefferson was the athlete of early American statesmen. 
He was bold and radical in thought, hopeful in tempera- 
ment, laborious in application to business, and of a philo- 
sophic cast of mind. Magnanimous in purpose, hating all 
cant, he was a warm advocate of political equality. He 
early formed the idea that the colony of Virginia was no 
more under the control of England than were the early 



A 



JEFFERSON'S SUMMARY VIEW. II3 

Saxon settlers in that country under their former rulers. 
He saw the coming conflict between British bigotry and 
intolerance and American freedom and liberality, and he 
threw his solid influence to shape the course of the colonies 
in the fray. He was the greatest of all the American lead- 
ers in council. He had a wonderful aptitude in grasping 
and seeing the relation of general principles. In work he 
was methodical, painstaking and thorough. 

When the Virginia house of burgesses set apart a day 
for fasting and council, over the passage of the Boston Port 
Bill, it was dissolved by the colonial governor ; whereupon 
the members met and selected delegates to provide for a 
general congress of the colonies. Jefferson was chosen a 
delegate to the state convention which was called to arrange 
for the general congress. The interval of time he passed in 
drafting a paper of principles, which were to act as instruc- 
tions to the delegation which was to attend the congress in 
Philadelphia. In these principles, which he prepared for the 
convention, he maintained " that the relation between Great 
Britain and these colonies was exactly the same as that of 
England and Scotland after the accession of James, and the 
same as her present relations with Hanover — having the 
same executive chief, but no other necessary political con- 
nection ; and that our emigration to this country gives no 
rights of local legislation over us." This paper of principles 
was too radical, and after being read was laid on the table. 
But its friends and advocates secured it, and published it 
under the title of "A Summary View of the Rights of 
America," which was extensively circulated. 

This paper placed Jefferson at the head of the leaders of 
the movement to break from England. Its novel and 
liberal doctrines were rapidly confirmed by the logic of 
events. The Declaration of Independence was little more 
than a transcript of this paper. 

He tried to hasten the life and death struggle that was 
felt to be impending. His plan was, to entirely cut loose 
from England and from old forms and doctrines of govern- 
8 



114 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

ment. He introduced a measure to provide for the gradual 
emancipation of the slaves, and to estabhsh a general system 
of education. He was designated by the committee on the 
declaration of rights to draft the paper, which he presented 
for action on the second of July, and which was finally 
endorsed in the evening of the fourth of July, 1776. And 
this Declaration of Independence gave a guarantee of fame 
to its author which shall never diminish. 

Subsequently Jefferson secured the adoption of the 
system of coinage, which is still in use. He drafted the plan 
for the territorial government of the vast district lying 
northwest of the Ohio. At his suggestion it was resolved 
that "after the year 18 10 there shall be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude in any of the said states." It was an 
attempt to settle this resolution that led to the war of 1861,, 
and which was forseen by the sagacity of Jefferson as early 
as 1783. He was the great and worthy founder of democ- 
racy as known in America. 

A patriot born of the freedom of the forest, was Patrick 
Henry. The king had authorized the Virginia clergy to be 
paid in tobacco, levied on each planter. In court, Henry 
made it the cause of the American people ; declared that 
the colony held the natural right of self-direction in all her 
affairs, against the perogatives of the crown, and the civil 
establishment of the bigoted church of England. In the 
Virginia assembly he maintained that the people inherited 
equal franchises with the people of Britain, and that the 
assembly alone had the right to lay taxes. Hearing of 
Hawley's prophetic words, "We must fight," he said; " I am 
of that man's mind." He spoke in favor of preparing a 
means for defense ; and when the time had fully come for 
action, he made on the floor of burgesses a speech that rang 
the alarm-bell of the continent, and kindled to white heat 
the feelings for liberty. 

Henry was great in the intensity of purpose, the pure and 
simple love for freedom and the forces of impetuous energy 
and prompt action. As an orator, he was made for the time 



LAFAYETTE THE PATRIOT ; MORRIS THE FINANCIER. 1 1 5 

by the very spirit of the times, bold, aggressive and full of 
the consciousness of being entitled to all the freedom of the 
bird in the woodland. 

LaFayette had the old-time spirit of chivalry to which he 
added a devotion to liberty. When scarce out of boyhood, 
he listened with avidity to the strange tales told in France 
of the rising of the New England yoemanry. He resolved 
to strike a blow for fame and freedom. He was strong in 
integrity, and nothing could shake his unalterable devotion 
to the concerns of humanity. Enthusiastically wedded to 
republican institutions, he was a useful patriot in the great- 
est struggle ever created by the pure spirit of patriotism. 
He rose to distinction more by his virtue and love for liberty 
than by his intellect and ability. His devotion to the prin- 
ciples of the new republic, marks him a leading force among 
the splendid galaxy of men who went into the breach of 
death to form that republic. 

Robert Morris was the financial savior of the country. A 
Welshman, with the peculiarly honest qualities for which 
that people are distinguished, he possessed that integrity 
and sagacity which enabled him to see the financial embar- 
rassment of the country. An army without arms, clothing 
or food, and a congress without money, were the troubled 
problems which bothered but did not dismay him. Possess- 
ing a princely fortune, he borrows money on his private 
credit and forwards it to Washington ; when that is exhausted 
he draws upon himself, and at last lays his entire fortune on 
the altar of sacrifice, and becomes a bankrupt himself to 
save his country from bankruptcy. For this magnanimous 
act, without a parallel in our history, his memory ought 
never to die out in the gratitude of the American people. 
His sterling principles of devotion, leading him to give his 
wealth to save the credit of congress, designates him as one 
of the greatest benefactors of the country. Afterward 
becoming minister of finance,' he induced the federal con- 
gress to issue a charter for a national bank. His whole life 



Il6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIP^E. 

was devoted to the effort to initiate a strong and well- 
equipped government. 

Pulaski, the Pole, covered with the scars of Poland, 
gained American gratitude in the single battle of Brandy- 
wine. Filled with bitter hatred for tyranny and wrong as 
he had seen them perpetrated against the liberties of Poland, 
he was equipped with the right qualities and in right degree 
to be a mighty warrior for the cause of freedom. His valor 
and the heavy death swing of his sword saved the day at 
Brandy wine. His form sank in the smoke of that battle 
not to rise again ; but his fame rose until it properly shines 
in the same constellation with that of Washington. 

A pioneer warrior who fought well and hard in the cause 
for which humanity had been waiting for centuries was 
Israel Putnam, who hastened over the Boston common fired 
by the news of Lexington's blood. His famous qualities of 
prowess and patriotism made him an heroic figure upon 
which men looked and were inspired. 

Montgomery's brave sweep through the streets of Quebec, 
where the snowbanks were reddened with patriots' blood, 
with the long and weary march through hundreds of miles 
of unbroken woods which preceded the night attack on the 
Quebec garrison, entitle him to a place where we group the 
great characters who built our nation and created a grand 
asylum for earth's oppressed. He was of chivalric courage 
and magnanimity of heart which made him a devotee to 
liberty as well as a favorite with the men who fought and 
fell with him for the same blessed cause. Clear in judg- 
ment, accurate in plan and full of enthusiasm, he was a per- 
fect specimen of a great military leader. 

The daring and brilliant qualities of Wayne made him 
one of the most successful leaders in the war for principle^ 
right and freedom. His chivalric bearing in battle, his 
promptness, decision and headlong courage, and blunt, 
straightforward manner, made him a master-spirit over the 
soldiers. With all his impetuosity, the most striking quality 
in his character was self-possession. Intensely excited in 



MEN OF IRON NERVE. II7 

battle, he would tear like a madman through the ranks ; but 
his strong feelings, or the smoke, carnage and confusion of 
the battle could not unsettle his judgment. This mastery 
of self, which in critical situations is one of the chief elements 
of a great commander, Wayne, like Washington and Bona- 
parte, held in the midst of the highest excitement. He 
toiled in battle nobly for country and glory, maintained his 
honor to the last and holds a well-won place with the 
defenders of the country. 

Among the great men raised up by the Providence of 
events, to lead our liberties to consummation, Greene was 
the ablest commander next to Washington. With a won- 
derful power for endurance, an indomitable will, a strict 
attention to small details and an almost intuitive perception 
of character, he was one of the most ready and trusted men 
of those terrible times, which seemed to have no glory but 
that of the determination of right to subdue wrong. He 
commenced his campaign without an army, provisions or 
military stores, yet he was most successful of all the division 
commanders. His like is seldom seen. In any country of 
Europe with a veteran army under his command he would 
have astonished the world. 

Moultrie was a brave among the braves. The noblest 
thing about him was his pure and exalted patriotism. His 
country and liberty he loved above his life ; neither selfish 
ambition nor sordid gain sullied his brilliant career. While 
a prisoner of war, a British officer endeavored to persuade 
him to enter the English service. He tried to induce him 
to serve in Jamaica where the American interests would not 
be concerned. Moultrie knew he would likely remain a 
prisoner during the war, while in the English service in 
Jamaica he could run a career of glory; but his reply was a 
part of his patriotic manhood: "When I entered into this 
contest, I did it with the most mature deliberation, and 
with a determined resolution to risk my life and fortune in 
the cause. The hardships I have gone through I look back 
upon with the greatest pleasure. I shall continue to go on 



Il8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

as I have begun, that my example may encourage the 
youths of America to stand forth in defense of their rights 
and Hberties. You call upon me now, and tell me I have a 
fair opening of quitting that service with honor and reputa- 
tion to myself by going to Jamaica. Good God! Is it 
possible that such an idea could arise in the breast of a man 
of honor! I am sorry you should imagine I have so little 
regard for my ©wn reputation as to listen to such dishonor- 
able proposals. Would you wish to have that man whom 
you have honored with your friendship, play the traitor? 
Surely not. You say, by quitting this country for a short 
time I might avoid disagreeable conversations, and might 
return at my own leisure and take possession of my estates 
for myself and family. But you have forgot to tell me how 
I am to get rid of the feelings of an injured honest heart, 
and where to hide myself from myself; could I be guilty of 
so much baseness I should hate myself and shun mankind. 
This would be a fatal exchange from my present situation : 
with an easy and approved conscience of having done my 
duty, and conducted myself as a man of honor." If moral 
elevation of character, conviction of right and courage to 
do right are elements of greatness, then Moultrie truly was 
a great man. 

General Lincoln was a noble if not a brilliant leader. 
So pure, sympathetic and benevolent, he was without any 
of that chivalric feeling which is necessary for the best 
success as a commander. Though resolute and decided, his 
kindness and gentleness developed almost into a weakness. 
This may account for his misfortune on the field. But, as a 
man of deep convictions, gentle ways and winning demeanor, 
his noble character was a living example and inspiration. 

Clinton was a noble man and an able officer. Inured 
from his early youth to danger, privation and toil, his frame 
acquired a wonderful power of endurance, and nothing 
seemed able to shake his iron constitution. Like Stark, 
Putnam, and others who served in the French war, he 
became so accustomed to surprises and ambuscades, and all 



THE TIMES THAT TRIED MENS SOULS. 1 19 

the sleepless vigilance required in that half-civilized, half- 
savage warfare, that danger had lost all power even to 
excite him. He could not be startled from his self-posses- 
sion, nor his feelings for a moment thrown into confusion. 
Cool, steady and determined, he moved amid a battle with 
a sangfroid and firmness that astonished his soldiers. 

He was affectionate in his disposition, frank, generous and 
kind, and when unexcited, mild ; but when aroused, he was 
terrible as a storm. He was one of those powerful natures 
which in repose exhibit only traits of gentleness and quiet 
strength ; yet, if summoned into sudden action, put forth 
awful energy, and appall those who before had never dreamed 
of such a slumbering volcano under so mild an exterior. 
He was an incorruptible patriot, a fearless and gallant 
soldier, and a true-hearted man. 

Marion, Sumpter and Lee are names forever enshrined 
in the annals of the South. The name of Marion became 
a spell-word among the planters of his colony. Without 
pay — even the hope of victory — hunted from woodland to 
swamp, he still struggled on to keep the waning fires of 
patriotism burning in the hearts of the people. Binding 
men to him by love rather than by command, he would let 
them disband for their homes with no security but their 
promise to return when wanted. Yet that promise was 
never broken. His patriotism was as sincere as his character 
was pure. He neither asked nor expected pay ; his country 
he loved better than life, and liberty was the impulse that 
sfirred his whole being and enabled him to rule his men, 
and as if by magic, without any authority but love. 

Others there were, and many, true, brave and great men 
in congress and in the field, who deserve to be fondly 
cherished for their great deeds done in the name of liberty, 
and for the sake of making America free and prosperous. 
But these are the leading characters in council and camp, 
and those of lesser note, but just as brave, will fill out the 
picture of those times that tried men's souls. 

Such were the men who planted the tree of liberty in 



120 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

this soil, watered it Avith their blood, watched over it with 
their vigils, and firmly braced it from the storm of bigotry, 
tyranny and oppression, until its roots were fixed in the 
purpose of the people, and its branches cheered men in their 
enterprise and growth. 

It fell to these to see, interpret and give force to the 
ideas and feelings of an oppressed people. Back of them 
was the truth they strove to bring to the world's recogni- 
tion, and the great wants of the universal people. Their 
greatness grew out of their humanity and the heroism to 
assert it. The founders of our empire, the builders of our 
nation, the architects of our government — they must be 
known to know our national life. 



CHAPTER IX. 

FORMATION OF OUR NATIONAL LIFE. 

OUT of these different elements, under these varied 
influences, by the personal force of these great men, 
against all the opposition, for the avowed purpose of relig- 
ious and political freedom and equality, our national life 
was formed. 

It was the hugest undertaking, as it has proven to be the 
greatest enterprise of the age. Nothing on so gigantic a 
scale, nothing with such radical measures, nothing with such 
revolutionary intentions, nothing with such moral considera- 
tion — nothing like it in any sense was ever dreampt of by 
political reformers before. Political regeneration had been 
both planned and attempted in Greece, in Holland, in the 
free cities of Germany; but nothing before was ever known 
to have been attempted where the very foundations of state- 
craft were torn up, and without the authority of precedence, 
any model to plan by, or rule for action, a people deliber- 
ately went to work to establish a government in which the 
citizen would stand equal to the ruler. 

It cannot be judged by any former effort, or measured by 
any other standard. It stands supreme and alone the most 
unique in character and the most magnificent in proportions, 
of the political productions of the world. Way back in the 
centuries the causes were shaping themselves, and at least a 
century before its formation elements were grouping for 
combination, and the forces were being moved by the hidden 
powers of the Providence of progress. 

The marvelous and opportune origin of our country is a 
matchless story in the history of political thought. Her 
founders were a chosen people, culled from the best blood 

131 



122 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of the Norman, the Saxon and the Celt, whose consciences 
were their only monitors for right and accusers of wrong, 
whose ingrained sense of equality was the surety of their 
justice. 

In the fringe of this continent where this people had 
settled, there were no castelated towers, ivy-crowned turrets, 
no baronial castles, no gothic churches, no kings' palaces; all 
was new. The charter of John and the compact of the 
Mayflower were the only written hints of the future com- 
monwealth. 

The great drama of the revolution as an act of war has 
no part in this work. It was the fight of liberty with 
oppression, of freedom with tyranny, and forms a volume of 
the light and shadow of glorious conflict for right and prin- 
ciple. The spirit of liberty throughout the world endorsed 
this struggle for liberty by ordaining her freeborn sons to 
aid us in the name of patriotism to the common rights of 
humanity. France sent us a Lafayette, the compeer of our 
own Washington ; Germany gave us a DeKalb to fall under 
eleven wounds at Camden, and a Steuben to teach the art 
of arms; Ireland consecrated the blood of Sullivan, and gave 
Montgomery; Poland sent Kosciusko and Pulaski who 
fought and fell in the very bosom of the country's gratitude. 
It was the contribution made by freedom, of genius, patri- 
otism and energy to serve the holy hour of freedom's trial.|||p 
Their deeds are their monuments. 

The glory of this war is not in the heroism of the men, 
or the daring of the leaders, so much as the purpose which 
necessitated it. It was not a war for conquest or ambition, 
but for right and justice. The Roman fought for glory, the 
French for pride, Germany for the possession of Empire, 
England for conquest, but America for the idea of eternal 
right. And it must be said that never has this people sent 
out armies and navies for conquest, or at the bidding of 
ambition, or for the mere sake of war, but every war has 
been one in which has been at stake a mighty principle of 
right and liberty which concerned the whole people. 



THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY AND EQUALITY. 1 23 

Other nations have owed their origin to love of war, to 
ambition and to thirst for power. Other nations have been 
founded to advance the fortunes of military chieftains, or to 
promote the desire of selfish ambition. This nation alone 
owes its birth to the pure spirit of liberty and equality. No 
unhallowed, no sordid, no debasing influences were near 
when this commonwealth was created out of the elements 
of virtue, integrity and freedom, in wisdom and judgment. 
The spirit of liberty crossed the Atlantic with the Hugue- 
nots, Hollanders, Pilgrims and Quakers ; it was nurtured by 
gallant hearts, whose devotion to right was given amidst 
tears of suffering and pangs of wrong; of that noble spirit 
born of oppression, tested by persecution, was the eloquent 
form of the American government born. Chaste and most 
pure, this spirit that gave our nation birth. Here divinity 
and humanity were met. Little did the Puritan preacher of 
Dorchester, two hundred years ago, realize the far-reaching 
genius of his prophetic words, that "God sifted a whole 
nation that he might send a choice grain over into this wild- 
erness." It was the germ of political liberty, which, after 
its maturity here, has moved through the dark abodes 
of oppressed humanity and aroused men to thought and 
hope and effort. 

What mighty changes have a hundred years of political 
liberty witnessed? This grain has germinated and flourished 
in Europe in spite of her monarchies. Napoleon made the 
continents tremble with his hostile legions. Forty centuries 
looked down upon his conquering armies from the pyramids 
of Egypt. France heard the trumpet blast of liberty, awoke 
at the noise of breaking forms sounding over the world, and 
tore off the tattered trappings of feudalism, trampled the 
decrepit thing in the dust and enrolled her name among the 
republics of earth. Greece, dreaming of Marathon and 
Thermopylae, shook off her long slumber, and caught up 
again sword and shield and beat back, as of old, Asia and 
barbarism and consecrated anew to freedom the land of the 
olive and the vine. Nations driven by the reins of tyranny 



124 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

for centuries heard the shouts of freemen and made their 
thrones tremble with the voice of protest. Austria, the lord 
of tyranny and oppression, compelled her emperor to abdi- 
cate. A pope who claimed the right no man could show, 
infallibility, was scarcely seated in his papal chair, before he 
fled in disguise from his pontifical halls, and Italy was an 
awakened nation. Hungary caught the spirit from the new 
life evidenced everywhere, struggled for independence and 
attained it so far as to compel a parliament. Russia heard 
the sound coming in the north breezes and responded in 
emancipating her serfs and starting the march of progress. 
China tore down her walled empire and opened her gates to 
the car of progress. Japan, whose narrowness was from 
antiquity, has beckoned to the commerce of the world and 
is showing evidence of an awakening civilization. To Poland 
and Belguim the summons was carried on the western winds, 
and right royally was it answered. Even England found in 
the protest of the American colonies the forgotten lesson of 
her former liberties, and in the success of liberty in America 
the freedom of opinion and rights of equality in England 
found a new pledge. 

And that trumpet blast started by the blood-purchased 
rights in America is pealing and will peal, arousing manhood, 
integrity and principles everywhere to assert themselves for 
man's good and happiness. Still, at that growing cry for 
freedom, the lash of tyrants will fall, the thrones of oppres- 
sion will crumble, the persecutions of bigotry will cease, the 
injustice of parliaments will be checked, the last semblance 
of despotism will fade utterly away ; and the hopes of free- 
men will rise and their hearts beat faster in gladness at the 
progress of truth, the growth of liberty and the blessing of 
prosperity. So it is seen how the liberties secured in 
America become the pledge of the universal sovereignty of 
right, justice and equality. 

The principles by which the equality of liberty was given 
humanity were found to be solid and enduring. The stability 
of the present and the hope of the future are found to lie in 



THE GREATEST MYSTERY OF POLITICS. 1 25 

these underlying principles of our national life — the univer- 
sal equality and inalienable rights of all men. Human rights 
are the rights of all men, and of each man, and they cannot 
be taken away except so far as he surrenders them for the 
general good. Governments are organized for the protection 
of the virtues and rights of human society, but they derive 
all "their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
To this extent a man may surrender his natural, personal 
rights. Our government is from an internal and not from an 
external source. Man's liberties are secure under this system, 
because he rules himself, and for convenience may do it 
by a delegated power, to be conferred and to be changed at 
stated intervals. His laws are, therefore, of his own making, 
and while it is his duty, as a member of society, to obey 
them, he has the power of correction whenever he finds them 
unjust or oppressive. 

Under such a form of government the right of armed 
revolution does not exist, and cannot until the fundamental 
sources of the government be abused. In organized society 
man is the source of political power for self-government, and 
corrections or repairs belong to men from whence the 
authority of government is derived. In this authority and 
source all men are equal, and that without respect to race, 
creed, or color. The safety of the commonwealth rests upon 
this principle, which is woven in every fibre of our life. 

By the establishment of this government on such prin- 
ciples, three all-important lessons were taught the world — 
lessons for which humanity had been sighing for ages. 
These were liberty, equality and fraternity. They were the 
greatest and grandest doctrines ever held by man. Either 
one would have glorified any one age, and distinguished it 
as a new departure in history. But for all three of these 
great truths to flash clear to the zenith in one single short 
age — this is the greatest mystery to be explained by the 
philosophy of politics. 

These three full texts of human society have already 
filled the world with blessings uncalendared, and privileges 



126 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

which two centuries ago were undreampt of by the wisest of 
the wise. Peace is coming hke an eternal sunrise over the 
nations. War is no longer resorted to as the only means to 
settle trifling disputes ; only the graver troubles which con- 
cern the very basis of human rights are now regarded as 
justifiable causes for an appeal to arms. Personal rights, as 
well as the rights of nations, are being respected with some- 
thing like the reverence they deserve; and progress is an 
assured factor in humanity when men learn to pay heed to 
the rights of each other, and nations learn that nations have 
rights. It is a death blow at selfishness, the most hateful 
quality to be found in either personal or national life. All 
classes bringing their complaints to the New World to settle, 
adjusted them on the principle of fraternity. Out of this 
fraternity has grown an intercourse of nations most advan- 
tageous to the commerce of the world. Only when this 
was reached did international law become possible ; and the 
growth of international law is one of the chief triumphs of 
the nineteenth century. With this slowly comes to the 
front international education, international science ; and may 
there not be expected an international religion? These 
qualities of liberty, equality and fraternity are developing 
the gentler and more refining virtues. Men become more 
tender as they come to understand their mutual rights and 
relations. Integrity and honor grow out of the same activi- 
ties; and in the further development of these truths lie the 
growth of honesty, charity and benevolence. So it is not 
fanciful or visionary to say, that, as liberty, equality and 
fraternity become master truths with the race, men will 
live more honest, kind and gentle ; vice will have received 
its strongest prevention, and crime its best remedy; moral- 
ity, candor and patriotism will blossom and throw their 
fragrance of peace, purity and contentment to sweeten 
society. This is no Platonic dream or Utopian spell; it is 
what may be expected when these truths, torn from under 
the heel of oppression a hundred years ago, become fully 
set in the convictions of men. It is what is already attained 



THE GREAT LAW OF LIBERTY. 12/ 

imperfectly. A contrast of the humanity of to-day with 
what it was two centuries ago will show a startling fact, 
which can be interpreted and understood only in conjunction 
with these truths of freedom. To this, more than to all 
else, is due the progress of the present century. 

The enunciation of the great law of liberty by the 
American freeman threw a light that reached over Europe, 
through Asia — even into Africa — and gilded the great globe. 
It has accomplished more in one century to emancipate 
political thought than all time prior could attain. It carried 
the race through five hundred years of progress in a single 
century. In brief, this law of freedom has resulted in some 
of the most beneficial consequences that could be hoped for. 

First, it opened the way to the republican conditions of 
France, and the emancipation of Italy and Russia. The 
leaders of the French revolution mistook the methods of 
the American struggle, and they precipitated the nation into 
an unprecedented anarchy. Coming out of this, France 
again tended back to anarchy; but the genius that under- 
rested American citizenship, especially by the inspiration of 
Lafayette, worked like a leaven on the people, and surely, if 
slowly, the spirit of equality is evolving an age of freedom 
for that land so long under the cloud of kingcraft and pope- 
craft. The disenthrallment of the people of Italy from the 
political bondage of the church was one of the greatest 
moral triumphs and significant political events for centuries. 
It was hailed by every reformer throughout the world as a 
most beneficent sign for Italy, and a golden promise of the 
progress that would naturally follow. The effect upon the 
autocrat of Russia in inducing him to free from serfdom 
twenty-three millions of the human race, will stand in his- 
tory as one of the most magnanimous results of good law 
ever acting upon the mind of a sovereign. 

Secondly, it brought about perfect security for liberty on 
the seas of the globe, so that the flag of any accredited 
nation can wave unmolested in any sea wherever the sails of 
commerce may drive it. This has proven to be the greatest 



128 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

impulse that could possibly be given to the trade among 
nations. It is rapidly developing an international system of 
commerce. This will do no little work in bringing about a 
better feeling among all countries, and will accomplish a 
great deal in maintaining a better balance of the comforts of 
life among all people. 

Thirdly, it gave council for abolishing the slave trace, 
which prompted the abolition of slavery by Great Britain, 
France, Russia, and by our own country. 

Such is the beneficent character given our national life, 
and its counter influence on other nations. It will be 
observed that it is by far the most pure, wise and noble 
government on earth. 



PART SECOND. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

POLITICAL Economy is the science which shows how 
things intended to satisfy our wants are produced, and 
how they are consumed ; how they are distributed among 
a people, and how they are exchanged one for another all 
over the world. It is actually the science of industry and 
wealth. Its aim is to investigate and explain the nature, 
relations and laws of wealth, and the means used to produce 
wealth. 

Political economy is a science which comes in contact 
with the business interests of men, and lies in the region of 
daily action and desire. For this reason it is of the most 
practical benefit to every man who is interested in his own 
success or that of his fellow-man, or that of the nation. It 
is the science of business success, and ought to interest every 
man who is engaged in any kind of productive industry, 
whether farming or mining, banking or mechanics, merchan- 
dise or manufacturing. In a paticular sense ought every 
American youth be profoundly interested in that science 
which teaches the laws of personal and national success. 
The American boy generally believes in industry, and has 
an ambition for business. This is inborn in the American 
character. Most all men in the land who make a failure of 
life, do so because they were without any training whatever 
in the science of production and supply, and never learned 
the industrial laws of this country. Most men in this land 
have the capacity and desire to be useful and productive, 
and would, under the right kind of industrial training, 
exhibit the best order of capability. 
9 129 



130 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

There is a great necessity for an industrial science or 
political economy for the people of the United States. 
Most of the works written on this subject are from the Eng- 
lish, French or German standpoint, and are inadequate for 
this country. While the principles of industry are the same 
the world over, and the means used to produce wealth are 
the same, yet the conditions of life, social and political, of 
the different countries are so vastly unlike that a work on 
political economy adapted to the wants of one people is of 
little value to another. This is especially the case with 
reference to this nation as compared with those of the Old 
World. Particularly is this the trouble with the English 
science of political economy. The system of government, 
the social life, the commercial conditions and the industrial 
relations are all so entirely unlike that it is impossible for a 
work written in England to be of practical service in this 
country. And it is to be regretted that all the works on this 
subject read in this country are either English productions,, 
or if written in this country reflections of those in England. 
The bottom principles of the science as laid down by Mills 
and Smith, the great English economists will hold good for 
the science everywhere, and likely for all time. But the 
conditions, methods and values of the industries are so 
wholly unlike in the two countries that an English book can 
never become of practical importance to the general reader 
in America. The student will continue to go to the heavy, 
logical and metaphysical treatises of the English writers, but 
the great mass of business men in this country, and those 
who are anxiously looking from youth's hopeful years to a 
successful business career, demand and should have a work 
of practical value, and adapted to the American people. 

The industrial forces of the American country constitute 
the ground work for a political economy for the American 
people. 

All permanent forces lying within the field of his survey, it 
is the office of the American political economist to bring for- 
ward and calculate ; transient forces — forces not belonging to. 



THE OFFICE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 131 

but affecting for the moment, the interests of production — 
it is the office of the business man and the statesman to con- 
sider. It is they who take the general conclusions of science 
and apply them to the varied facts immediately before them, 
remembering that a use of the principle is not its suspension 
or rejection, but the right discernment of its modified action. 

It is the ofifice, then, of this science to explain the phe- 
nomena of wealth as produced by the American industries, 
its acquisition and circulation. And this is to be done by 
consecutively tracing all the results of a few leading and 
controlling principles which, of themselves, give character 
and direction to the great mass of facts. It is utterly impos- 
sible to write up this science to apply to all the small details 
of production, circulation and wealth, but only to apply to 
the great leading forces and conditions of industry and 
wealth, and so as to make it possible and even easy for any 
person to make a clear application of the rules of the science 
to his particular calling. The few principles once traced to 
their complete results, the great work of political economy is 
performed. If we thoroughly understand the leading forces 
and lines of movement, it is comparatively easy to apply these 
to a given case ; to trace the effects of the modifying causes 
or peculiar circumstances entering into any given problem. 

While political economy is an individual science, in so far 
as it has to deal with the fact of production, its ultimate 
object is to define the conditions and laws of wealth. And 
the great number of channels open in this country for the 
production of wealth makes the science conflict with many 
diverse opinions. In reference to this wealth, its methods 
and acquisitions, and the policy which should control and 
guide our individual and national industry, there have always 
been favorite opinions — schemes which, though often based 
on the most limited views, on mere prejudices, have yet arro- 
gated the authority of experience and led men to look with 
suspicion or contempt on the best established principles, the 
most broad and conclusive reasonings, of political economy. 
Even when forced to assent to the proofs and conclusions of 



132 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

this science, many have been willing to regard them as so 
restricted by arbitrary and hypothetical premises, as to be 
utterly unsafe in practice ; as solely theoretical ; as giving 
hints and hopes, but not laws, to the weighty necessities 
of life. 

While not forgetting the occasion which the inaccuracy of 
alleged science has frequently given to this feeling, we yet 
are sure that no' attack, open or furtive, more thoroughly 
undermines the social sciences than this capricious and arbi- 
trary suspension of men's conclusions the instant they affect 
action. The meeting of well ascertained tendencies of princi- 
ples established by broad and careful reasoning, with a vague 
charge of theory, with a reference to certain practical exi- 
gencies, undefined and unexplained, is declamation — is the 
substitution of a narrow opinion and most partial experi- 
ence for conclusions deeply established on observation and 
human nature. Such a method, if defensible, would ren- 
der the most radical and thorough investigations valueless 
and the careless affirmations of an unanalyzed experience 
authoritative. 

We readily acknowledge the modifying influences of cir- 
cumstances ; we only demand that these circumstances, while 
as yet but partially apprehended, and in the nature and 
degree of their influence wholly unestimated, should not be 
thrown into the scale as make-weights against clear, accurate 
reasonings and inevitable tendencies. We appreciate the 
advantage which these practical difficulties and experimental 
reasons, must ever have while left vague and undefined. 
They may vitiate the most conclusive argument ; they may 
set aside the most weighty tendencies ; indeed, none can tell 
what they may not do, for no one knows exactly what they 
are, or has tested their strength. So that the principles and 
rules which have been carefully studied out of American 
industrial life, by the most rigid and thorough analysis, must 
be regarded as of weight and authority. There is a political 
economy for the people of the United States, but it is largely 



POLITICAL ECONOMY A SOCIAL SCIENCE. 1 33 

unwritten and must be culled from the industrial life of the 
people, which after all is the best of all sources. 

In order to have a right apprehension of this science and 
of its value, it is necessary to still further understand its 
nature and position as a science. 

As a first observation, it is well to be reminded that polit- 
ical economy is not only an industrial science, but that it 
belongs to the social sciences, and has to deal with compli- 
cated and ever-varying phenomena. Individual character- 
istics, social surroundings, the circumstances of advantage 
and disadvantage acting upon these, the new conditions 
begotton by their interaction, are all innumerable, and in 
any given instance, much more in anticipation of all instances, 
totally beyond a complete estimate. Yet these phenomena, 
complicated beyond all exhaustive analysis, are the material 
of the social sciences. If, then, these sciences can have no 
validity, no authority, except as they include and explain 
all the phenomena to which they pertain and are afterward 
to be applied, it is evident they must be abandoned as 
sources of instruction and guidance, and be retained only 
for that discipline, which theories consecutively unfolded, 
however partial and arbitrary, are able to afford. But this, 
far from being the sole, is but a very secondary aim in the 
cultivation of the sciences of wealth, morals and govern- 
ment. Notwithstanding the conflicting and partial results 
of mental science, with which these sciences are in immedi- 
ate connection — notwithstanding the broad, shifting field 
of phenomena in which their principles find play — there is 
yet in each of them authority and guidance. 

A science of wealth is secured, not by an effort to enu- 
merate and trace in their effects all the influences at work in 
its production, consumption and transfer, but only those 
which by their prominence and weight give direction and 
law to the whole movement. The possibility, then, of this 
science, or indeed of any science, will depend whether there 
are causes underlying its phenomena so few as to be within 
the reach of inquiry; so controlling as to render that 



134 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

inquiry safe in its practical deductions, and so traceable as 
to give us their law and also prepare us for the exceptions. 

In political economy these conditions are more fully met 
than perhaps in any other social science. It is an observed 
fact that men choose everywhere that method which secures 
the most wealth with the least labor; and this fact is the 
spirit and law of nearly every monetary transaction. The 
three desires : of wealth, ease, and of present as in contrast 
with future gratification are traceable everywhere, and fur- 
nish the law of personal effort. Between one dollar and two 
dollars a man really has no choice; he must take the 
greater; between one day and two days of labor he must 
take the less; between the present and the future he must 
take the present. Whichever one of a thousand motives 
engages a man in the pursuit of wealth, once in that pursuit 
these all conform to one method and bend to one law; the 
various causes which draw men from production are over- 
come, or tend to be overcome, by the same motive — success, 
made most rapid and complete. 

Political economy is an experimental science. We arrive 
at all its data through experience. It is by experience that 
we know the desires and tendencies of men ; it is by the 
same method that we know the relations working between 
production, demand and supply. As a science it has to do 
with facts, and existing causes of a known character, and is 
traceable to sure results. So that the investigations in this 
science are perhaps the most safe and clear of any of the 
social sciences. In the fact, then, that the forces of political 
economy, as far as human nature is concerned, are few, well 
defined, and certain in their action, — that its calculations are 
largely those of mathematics, that the uncomputed forces 
are transient, mutually compensatory, and, in all extended 
cases, unimportant, — we find the possibility of its being a 
science accurate and practical. Such a science we regard it 
already, and shall trust to its presentation for the proof, 
delaying only to see something of its advantages and of its 
history. 



THE DISCIPLINARY BENEFIT OF THE SCIENCE. 1 35 

Another observation which is well to make concerning 
the economic science of our national life, is that it is one of 
the best of the sciences by which to give to the mind that 
discipline and thoughtful bias, which is so desirable for every 
successful man, and of great value in moulding a solid and 
sober citizenship for the perpetuity of the snation's pros- 
perity. It is not even enough to say that political economy, 
in common with other sciences, exercises, strengthens, and 
gives training to the mind. This it does with peculiar 
efficacy in two respects. Its proofs being more exact and 
conclusive than those belonging to any other social science, 
excepting, perhaps, a few of the conclusions of moral science, 
it best prepares the way for this whole department of inves- 
tigation, and happily introduces the student into a field 
whose phenomena are excessively complicated, whose 
methods of reasoning are peculiar, the generality of whose 
logic is limited by many exceptions, and whose questions 
are the most practical and important of , any that pertain 
to man. The preparatory discipline afforded by political 
economy to one giving himself to social questions, is invalu- 
able. The training which it affords is also of peculiar 
importance from the number of compensations, the compli- 
cated system of action and reaction which it accustoms the 
mind to observe and trace. The forces at work seek a 
certain balance, a certain equilibrium ; and when this is dis- 
turbed there is often a large variety of adjustments and 
readjustments before it is again secured. It is not sufficient 
to follow single causes ; these set in movement other forces, 
which, in their results, either modify or wholly compensate 
the action of the first. The whole field must be kept before 
the mind, and each alteration be traced in all its ramifica- 
tions, in all its direct and indirect effects, till a second 
equilibrium, a second state of rest, has been found. This 
often tasks the mind to the utmost, and accustoms it to a 
broad survey of consequences. This, again, is eminently a 
practical discipline, fitting the statesman for a wise and com- 



136 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

prehensive policy, and the private citizen for a liberal and 
strengthening method of thought and action. 

But the chief advantage of reading the science of political 
economy is not the discipline which it affords. The knowl- 
edge which it imparts is of an important and most practical 
character. Wealth underlies all civilization, and ultimately, 
therefore, in a large measure, both knowledge and religion. 
It is among the lowest, and yet among the first steps to 
social worth and national strength. Wealth should not be 
valued for what it is in itself, but for that to which it can be 
made to administer. In its retinue come, or rather may 
come, all intellectual, social, and religious advantages. 
Aught which helps to make the road of acquisition easy and 
open to all, thereby helps to lift all into a higher rank, and 
place at their command a larger share of enjoyments and of 
knowledge, and hence, we may hope, of virtue. Political 
economy, as the science of wealth, makes plain the laws of 
its acquisition and distribution, and if it does not open the 
path of the individual, yet gives him indisputable principles, 
according to which his action must be directed when once 
in that path. More especially, when the interests and pur- 
suits of large numbers are to be affected or regulated by 
legal enactments, these principles come forward to point out 
the action of the mutual forces at work, to show where legis- 
lation is futile, where pernicious, and where demanded to 
supply a deficiency. It is scarcely necessary to say, that a 
large share of legislation relates to the regulation and pro- 
tection of industrial agents, and that the laws of the forces 
of production must be thoroughly understood before this can 
be successfully accomplished. In a country where, in theory, 
every man is, and where every educated man should be, his 
own statesman, nothing can be more fit than a thorough 
training in this direction. If, even among those possessed 
of most intelligence, there are in this department no correct 
and thorough principles, we can hardly expect from the 
mass anything but the most unsafe and superficial views. 

Still another advantage conferred by this study is, that 



INDUSTRY THE GREAT CREATIVE FORCE. 1 37 

we are thereby able to see the harmony which exists between 
the interests of all classes and all countries. The competition 
and conflict which are on the surface are found to be but 
the transient foam of forces — of currents uniting to work 
the common weal ; beneath, there is no real strife, no per- 
manent conflict between the several classes of producers; 
the highest prosperity of each can only tend to the highest 
prosperity of all. This remark needs one qualification : 
that, while the laws of legitimate acquisition look to the 
good of all, and not to the plunder of any, any illegitimate 
action which violates a higher, a moral law, will usually vio- 
late a lower, an economic law, and measure the gains of one 
by the losses of another. There is a harmony of productive 
action by which the gains of all are secured, and are 
maintained. 

Industry appears to be the great creative force in the 
civilization of the world. It is the prime force in the growth 
of all commerce, and the elevation of every nationality. 
In this industry, wants, work and wealth are ever present 
factors. These are the essential elements of industry, and 
without all of them, industry in its full meaning could not 
exist. Without he had wants, man would not work ; with- 
out work, no wealth could be produced. If wealth was not 
a result of work, no one would work. The simple meaning" 
of wealth is goods. Thus the three factors of wants, work 
and wealth are involved in the full idea of industry. 

The industries fill the world ; they occupy the daily life 
of mankind ; they feed and support the populations of the 
globe ; they are the primary and principal element in all 
progress, and they fill the chief chapter in all history. Con- 
stituting the largest and most conspicuous part of the 
personal life and social connections of mankind, they, more 
and more, as civilization advances, engage the attention and 
enlist the energies of men and of nations. 

The study of these industries interest all who are inter- 
ested in watching the progress of humanity. It grows in 
interest with every advance in their character, and every 



138 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

new departure of trade. So that this study is that of man 
and of society in the largest field of their activities, and in 
the line of their most potential movements. 

To gain a clear and complete view of this science, we 
must not only study the principles and laws of a nation's 
industries, but observe the practical operation of these 
industries; we must enter the wide field of the daily work- 
ing life; we must look at and thoroughly examine all the 
leading facts presented by the busy millions of men, who 
are extending over land and over sea the mighty machinery 
of their work, and who are bringing into use and into 
service every form of matter and every power known in 
nature. 

We must watch the tendencies and development of labor, 
from its rudest form in the savage to its most complete 
achievement in the arts of the highest civilization. We 
must follow the paths of its march, from the simplest act of 
labor in the boy to its mighty outcome in the commerce of 
cities, empires, and the whole world. 

All these things will be seen to spring from a few simple 
forces which are controlled by a few principles, and which it 
is the province of political economy to trace and describe. 
These simple elements, which form the forces of the indus- 
tries, are the wants, work and wealth of man. Through the 
whole field these appearances present themselves. The 
wants of man push forward the entire industries of the 
world, and give the direction and character to them all. 
They are physical and intellectual, social and moral, and 
include the endless run of human needs, desires, tastes and 
appetites. These wants form the basis of all market demand 
— the compelling reason and the final purpose of all indus- 
trial efforts. 

The work of man is simply the effort to satisfy these 
wants. This work includes the activity in all arts, trades 
and business. It comprises all the efforts which men make 
to create, preserve, transport or exchange, the efforts which 
satisfy their needs, either to secure pleasure or avoid pain. 



WHAT IS WEALTH? 1 39 

The wealth of man embraces all the results of work^ 
physical or mental. It includes the great mass of goods 
and possessions which are produced by work, and which are 
the proposed aim and object of all industrial effort. 

The term wealth, in political economy, is used to denote 
goods or valuable things, without reference to shape or 
quality. It may refer to money or stocks and bonds, and 
just as well to goods for trade or material to produce goods, 
or even the machinery by which the goods are made. It is 
a term just as applicable to the accomplishments of the 
mind, if they have an exchangeable value, as to the money 
in the bank. 



CHAPTER I. 

• OUTLINE OF THE SCIENCE. 

POLITICAL economy treats of the production of needed 
things to satisfy the wants of men. Naturally, then, 
the two leading divisions of the science are production and 
consumption. 

Production is the result of labor directed upon certain 
things in a crude state, that they may be adapted to the 
satisfaction of wants. We can neither create nor annihilate 
any part of matter; but we can modify almost everything so 
as to impart to it some utility, — that is, we can create value. 
Under this division, therefore, are considered the processes 
and laws by which labor gives value to things, as well as the 
conditions of work. The things brought out by this labor 
are properly called products. 

Consumption is the act of destroying things which have 
a marketable value, either for the immediate gratifications 
of the wants, or to produce some article of value for 
exchange, or future gratifications. The actual destruction 
of values is by necessity involved. Under the division of 
consumption are considered the laws by which are governed 
the use made of wealth to satisfy wants or gratify desires. 

There are among men great diversities of capacity for 
labor. It is therefore good economy of productive effort to 
unite the labors of many persons on a particular product, so 
that each may contribute the part which he can do best. 
Yet each person has a variety of wants, while his own labor 
is devoted to one thing. He must therefore get what he 
needs in exchange for what he makes. Hence arise two 
other branches of our science, logically subordinate to those 
just mentioned, though practically of the highest importance. 
They are distribution and exchange. 

140 



DISTRIBUTION AND EXCHANGE. 141 

Distribution embraces questions of equity and practical 
methods pertaining to the assignment to different laborers 
of their respective shares of values produced. Here are con- 
sidered the difficult problems growing out of the mutual 
relations of employers and employed. 

Exchange is the act of transferring things from one to 
another, according to their values. Each individual is busied 
in creating one utility, and wants a thousand. Each country 
produces, of certain articles, far more than it needs, and needs 
many others which it cannot produce at all. Hence the 
necessity of universal and ceaseless exchange. Under this 
division are considered the instruments, the laws, and the 
processes, which relate to the mutual transfer of values. 

The most difficult problems of political economy belong 
to the departments of distribution and exchange. 



CHAPTER II. 

LABOR. 

LABOR is the cause of production. Production is 
' impossible without labor. If products of former labor 
are used as a working basis, the name capital is given. This 
branch of production, then, presents three facts to be con- 
sidered: labor, capital, and the cooperation of these two 
factors. 

Labor is the voluntary or enforced exertion of persons 
put forth to attain some desired object. Labor, or work, 
must be the complement of nature. Nature, though rich in 
the lavish display of her gifts, very seldom puts them in that 
form in which they are ready for immediate use. There is 
in the productions of nature the possibilities of food, rather 
than food itself; the possibility of clothing, rather than 
clothes themselves; and the possibility of a home for shel- 
ter, and not that sheltering home itself. Those things which 
are ready for use without labor are generally regarded as 
common property, and which can alike be used by all who 
may be available. All wild fruits, the fish of the sea, and 
the game of the land, man appropriates to himself; and it 
is not until laws of man's own making give conditional own- 
ership, that personal possession can attach to them. When 
an ability or right exists to claim these natural productions 
of nature, it exists as incident to the possession of the land 
on which such natural production may have been produced. 
The productions of nature are provisionally bestowed, and 
can only become of utility by the labor of man, given with 
well-directed purpose. 

There is, then, everywhere, occasion for the labor of man 
in effecting those changes by which the materials about him 
are fitted for his use and enjoyment. Those transformations 

143 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LABOR. 143 

are very various in their character, involving labor in very 
different quantities ; and in proportions, as regards ultimate 
value, very different. Some products, as the precious metals 
and the precious stones, owe almost their entire value to the 
worth of the material; others, as laces and India shawls, 
to the labor which has been expended upon therh. Some- 
times, in the imparting of value, the direct agency is that 
of man, and the indirect agency that of nature, and some- 
times the reverse. In all mechanical processes man is the 
leading agent. Nature furnishes the wool, but man shears, 
washes, spins and weaves it, till in the final product nature 
seems tp have ministered to the processes of man, rather 
than man to those of nature. Not so in agricultural and 
chemical processes. Here man prepares the way and meets 
the necessary conditions; but the act itself of growth, or 
molecular transformation, on which the ultimate value 
primarily depends, is that of nature. Man may water the 
seed, but its living forces are not his, nor the sun which 
quickens them. He may put the iron in the furnace, but if 
it become steel, it does so by another power than his, which 
he has learned to employ, through that mechanical arrange- 
ment of materials which prepares the way for its working. . 
Indeed, all man's direct agency in production is analyzable 
into a mechanical transfer of particles; all else being the 
work of nature, of which he is thereby able to avail himself. 
Labor is the only force which, working on these material 
productions of nature, will render them of value. While 
natural agents furnish the instruments through which, and 
the materials on which, it may operate, while capital facili- 
tates its operations, it is labor that, shaping commodities 
and services to the multiform desires of men, does most to 
create and determine values. Few are the articles into 
which it does not enter as a prime element of cost, and by 
its differences in kind and degree the wealth and productive 
power of individuals and nations are determined. Labor, 
resulting in a product — a bow, a spear — has ever been one 



144 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of the earliest teachers of the rights of ownership and the 
principles of economic action. 

The people of the United States have no need to include 
in their estimate of labor any effort that does not create 
value ; since such efforts lie outside of the province of pro- 
duction, and have no place in the science of wealth. All 
labor, to be labor, must be productive; and when we have 
recognized a class of persons as laborers, we must consider 
them productive laborers. 

Labor sets in motion the wheels of all the industries, and 
converts these industries into wealth. The magnificent 
industrial movement of civilization speeds forward under 
the touch of work to its equally magnificent result. Labor 
is the great wealth-producer of the world. 

Man's labor is with the world as well as in it. His busi- 
ness is not merely that of producing the wealth of money or 
possession, but equally, and even in a higher sense, the 
wealth of comfort, peace and progress for his country. In 
his business of wealth-making, or in that broader business of 
maintaining life, increasing happiness and elevating his con- 
dition, he finds nothing before him but the naked planet on 
which he lives, and his own physical and intellectual powers. 
The entire field and problem of his labor must be found in 
these. He cannot go outside of these ; he can import noth- 
ing from other realms. His labor in this world can accom- 
plish four things. It can change material as it is found in a 
natural state to a condition of marketable value. In the 
second place, it can exchange these products for those of 
other departments of labor. Again, his labor can result in 
mental products, such as truth, art, science, government, 
civilization. In a fourth place, his labor can render service 
directly to humanity in the way of general benevolence, or 
by effort along the line of some special reform. These four 
include all the trades, professions and employments ; in 
them arc bound up all the ceaseless activities of the business 
world. 

There are two grand divisions of labor: physical labor, in 



DIVISIONS OF PHYSICAL LABOR. I45 

which muscular exertion is the chief force ; and secondly, 
mental labor, which engages chiefly the faculties of the mind. 

All productive industry combines some physical and some 
mental effort. Even the day-laborer must exercise his mind 
to handle his shovel with judgment and skill. In general, 
labor is effective in proportion as it is directed by intelhgent 
mind. Physical labor only moves things as to place, condi- 
tion or form. It depends on the capacity of living muscle 
to contract and expand as governed by the will. But this 
power to produce motion under the control of intelligent 
mind gives man unlimited command over the forces of 
nature to achieve his purposes. 

In physical labor, the first class is that which has to do 
with the production of the material for trade. This class of 
labor finds its type and representative in agriculture. Here 
is the farmer, the miner, the herdsman, the fisherman and 
the huntsman. In economics, agriculture is understood to 
include all those industries which simply collect nature's 
growths, without first cultivating them. Thus, lumbering, 
hunting and fishing may be counted as branches of agricult- 
ure, though the lumberman simply takes the trees from 
the wild forests ; the hunter collects the meats, skins, 
feathers, furs and ivories of animals which grew without his 
care, in their native haunts ; and the fishermen fetch from 
the lakes, rivers and seas, the fish which cost them only 
the labor of catching. At its outset, all agriculture gath- 
ered nature's spontaneous products. Agriculture, it is evi- 
dent, deals with the great life-forces of nature and nature's 
products. 

A second class of physical labor is that by which the 
materials are modified until they become completed prod- 
ucts. This includes not only that labor which lies in the 
direct line of change along which the raw material passes in 
becoming the commodity of our markets, but also the pro- 
cesses subordinate thereto — the constructions of buildings 
and implements. This class of labor is somewhat inade- 
quately and roughly comprehended in the term manufactur- 
10 



146 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

ing. This class includes a great variety of laborers: millers, 
bakers, spinners, weavers, dyers, workers in wood, leather, 
iron, erold ; all the innumerable servants of art in her various 
forms of handicraft. 

A third class of labor, completing the other two, is that 
of transfer, by which commodities pass from the hand of the 
producer to that of the consumer. Much of this transfer, 
however, may come in prior to the labor of the manufacture, 
or during its continuance. Here are the workmen of com- 
merce : the sailor, the boatman, the engineer, the porter, 
the drayman, the merchant. To this class belongs the whole 
work of transportation. This arises from the desire of men 
to collect and enjoy, at their homes, the varied products of 
distant lands and climes. Sitting in his own home a man 
may eat the fruits of the tropics, clothe himself with the 
furs of the Northland, the linen of Ireland, the silks of the 
South, or the soft wools of Saxony. On his table he may 
have the coffee of Arabia, the tea from China, the sugar of 
the Indies, and the spices of the East. To get these, the 
long lines of transportation and communication must be 
worked ; ships must sail, cars must run, caravans must 
march, telegraphs must flash ; and the great marts of trade 
must receive and distribute the products of every land. 

Transportation is the labor of exchange, and it has its 
own laws and conditions. It creates values the same as any 
other class of labor. It does not deal with nature directly, 
as do the great industries of the field and the shop, except 
as it employs her forces to float its ships and drag its trains. 
It might be called the service industry, since its mission is to 
run our errands, carry our packages to our neighbors, and 
bring back theirs to us. 

Physical labor is no more concerned in the production of 
wealth, not merely of money, but of homes, comfort and 
happiness, than is mental labor. For not only is the muscle 
useless without the brain, but the brain can and does pro- 
duce without the aid of the muscle. Mental labor is directly 
concerned in the production of wealth in three ways: 



DIFFERENT CLASSES OF MENTAL LABOR. 1 47 

First, in investigation, to discover the properties and laws 
of matter. So chemical research made known the substance 
phosphorus, and its property of starting into flame under 
friction. The scientific investigator and explorer discover 
facts which revolutionize industry and lend to it a produc- 
tiveness manifold greater than that which it had previously 
had. The discovery of the magnet had to go before the 
establishment of modern commerce. The spirit of discovery 
in the restless brain of Columbus had to go before the colo- 
nization of America. The studies of Galvani and his suc- 
cessors have resulted in the telegraph, telephone, electro- 
plating, electrotype, and that wonder of modern science, the 
electric light. Out of tffcse it is unsafe to predict what may 
yet be achieved. But along the line of a careful scientific 
investigation it is not wild to say that all things are possible 
with science. 

A second way in which mental labor is a producer is by 
invention, which grows out of investigation, and is almost a 
part, as is seen from the above paragraph. It is the province 
of invention to devise methods and instruments by which 
the properties of matter may be made to meet human wants. 
So matches were invented, — a very simple instrument, by 
which phosphorus is used to kindle our fires. So the spin- 
ning-jenny and the power-loom were devised to facilitate and 
cheapen the process of making cloth. The inventor is an 
intellectual laborer, turns the work of investigation to 
account, and places the new-found fact or force to its task in 
the industries of the world. Governments by the patents 
which they grant, recognize the property value of the 
thought of the inventor. 

A third kind of mental labor is that of oversight and 
superintendence. In the simplest kinds of labor, mind 
must direct muscle. Where numbers are joined in labor for a 
given product, one ingenious mind superintending gives effect 
to the muscular exertions of a score of ignorant workers. 

Authors, scholars, orators, teachers, lawyers, poets, states- 
men, preachers and artists, all belong to the guild of mental 



148 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

workers, and all have their place in the great workshop of 
the world ; all are counted of value, and their wages should 
be in proportion to the time, labor and expense required for 
their preparation and the service they render mankind. The 
number of mental laborers always increases with the advance 
of civilization ; and one of the plainest results of our modern 
improvements in the arts and in living is the release of men, 
more and more, from merely physical toil and drudgery, and 
their elevation to the position of brain-workers. Arms of 
iron and nerves of steel now do the hardest of the labor, 
while men furnish the eyes to watch the processes, and the 
hands to arrange the task and summon the power. 

Mental labor is also plainly instrumental in production, as 
it is applied to improve the physical health and the mental 
capacity of individvals, and to maintain order, justice and 
security in human society. Here belong the mother's care 
in nursing and training children ; the teacher's labor to 
develop the minds of youth ; the lawyer's counsel and plead- 
ings to define and maintain the rights and obligations of 
men under the rule of civil law ; the minister's efforts, by 
the truths and precepts of God's word, to form good con- 
sciences and improve the public moral sense; and the varied 
services of legislators and officers of government to insure 
stability and order in the very structure of society. Though 
these labors do not directly bring forth material products, 
they favor all the productive industry of a people, and are 
as essential to the best results of its processes as the manual 
labor of the farmer or the blacksmith. 

It is obvious that, in the wide range of productive indus- 
try, mental labor is quite as essential as physical labor. 
Whatever, therefore, quickens the mental activity and pro- 
motes the intelligence of a people, tends to the increase of 
their wealth. One of the paramount causes which has pro- 
duced the remarkable civilization of this country is that of 
intellectual genius. Nowhere and at no time have a nation's 
builders thrown such exhaustive brain labor in all directions 
as that which led the way for American civilization. The 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF MENTAL LABOR. 149 

inventive genius of the American brain has been the 
strongest factor in working out the grandeur of the American 
destiny. 

The question has been raised: whether intellectual forces 
are economic factors, and whether intellectual products are 
economic or commercial goods, having a marketable value. 
But there can be no question raised whether these intel- 
lectual powers and products play an important part in the 
field of the industries. Whether it be the discovery of a 
new force or element in matter, the invention of a new 
machine, the successful operation of a new field of study, 
the elucidation of a new law of science, the production of a 
new and valuable policy in government, the preparation and 
delivery of a sermon by the preacher, or a lecture by the 
lecturer, the painting of a new picture by the artist, the 
composition of a song by the musician, or a poem by the 
poet — whatever the mental labor, the world is not only 
ready to listen and examine, but even anxious to secure any 
valuable acquisition that will benefit it. And after this fact 
is closely observed, the question will scarcely be raised again 
as to whether these goods have a commercial value. 

A final kind of labor is that in which the laborer minis- 
ters directly to the gratification of his employer. This may 
be called service. The laborer in this field designs no 
product, makes no goods, offers no exchanges, aims at no 
intellectual effort. He simply meets the pressing wants of 
some person. He who brushes our clothes, brings our 
dinner, holds our valise, or drives our carriage, does us a 
valuable service, and we acknowledge the value of the ser- 
vice by giving value in exchange. The production of the 
country has not been increased by any of these acts, and 
there has been performed no mental labor, or any product 
conceived, planned or brought forth ; yet these persons have 
contributed to the wants of others, and this fact determines 
the value of their services. 

The chief criterion of service is, that it yields gratifica- 
tion without producing goods of value. It does just what 



150 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

goods are designed to do — meets our wants and desires. 
This kind of service constitutes a large part of the working 
force of the world. 

Many services are rendered gratuitously — as the service 
of a friend to a friend — by kindred and neighbors, and even 
services between strangers. They are all counted as contrib- 
utors to the common good, if not to the wealth of a people. 



CHAPTER III. 

HOW TO INCREASE THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR. 

THE saving and management of labor is an important 
consideration in the increase of wealth. Man's physi- 
cal power is limited and his strength is soon exhausted. But 
there are forces of nature which are stronger than he, and 
some of which never tire. These he can bring into his ser- 
vice, and so at the same time relieve the burden and multiply 
the products of his labor. 

There is also great difference in the capacities of different 
men. Some have strong muscles and dull minds. Others 
have strong minds in weak bodies. Some are specially fitted 
for one kind of labor, and others for another. The fruits of 
labor will therefore be increased, if many join hands under a 
systematic arrangement which sets every one to doing the 
particular kind of work for which he is best fitted. 

The productiveness of labor will depend first on the 
laborers themselves, or the motives which prompt them to 
labor, the character of the raw material in their hands, and 
the capital at their disposal. But there are two vital ele- 
ments in labor itself which almost entirely govern its pro- 
ductiveness. The first is the use made of the agents and 
forces of nature. Second, a systematic division of labor. 

The agents and forces of nature which contribute to the 
effectiveness of labor in its production are many. One of 
the most vital is animal strength and instinct. Next to his 
own strength man first learned to use the strength of the 
domesticated animals in his labor. This is largely and 
rapidly giving place to the forces of matter for the running 
of machinery. The wind, water and steam are found to be 
cheaper, more powerful, and more easy to manage than the 
ox or the horse. But animal strength has not been dis- 

151 



152 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

missed from labor, but only changed to other fields of 
activity. Instead of being used to draw the stage, it is 
used to transport people and freight to the cars driven by 
steam. Agriculture, mining, drafting and transportation 
have use for an ever-increasing quantity of animal strength, 
and it holds a larger place now in the industries than ever. 
This is a vital force which is always available in production. 
A man wanting to go a dozen miles over the hills on a 
matter of business, may make use of one of three ways to be 
transported to his desired destination. If he does not get 
there, a contribution to the wealth of the country's produc- 
tion is lost. Now he may be taken there by steam cars, or by 
horse strength, or by walking ; the first would be using a 
vital force of matter, the second animal strength, the third 
human strength. He cannot go by steam, because it is not 
an available force ; the cars do not run to that point. He 
cannot walk, as it would not take him to the given point 
within the given time ; hence human strength is not availa- 
ble. He can saddle or harness his horse in a moment's time ; 
hence animal strength is the only available force for this 
instance. This will illustrate why animal strength will 
always remain a vital force contributing to the efTectiveness 
of labor, because it is always available if not always the 
cheapest or most desirable. When the steam cars began to 
displace the stage coach it was thought horses would be use- 
less on the hands of their owners ; but the result shows that 
this very substitution of steam for animal strength increased 
the demand for horses; as it necessitated an immense 
amount of carting to build the roads, and a still larger to 
furnish transportation to people and freight going over the 
cars. This will remain as long as, in economics, animal 
strength is more available than steam for some purposes. 

The silent vital forces employed by nature to build up 
her forests and to clothe her fields with vegetation, as also 
those which work out the tissues and organs of animal life, 
are implied and embraced in the organic gifts which they 
create. 



THE MOTOR FORCES. 1 53 

In the great agricultural industries the forces of plant- 
growth have for ages been the chief reliance of the grain- 
raisers and the forest and fruit-growers. To stimulate these 
forces by cultivation, to nourish them by fertihzers, to direct 
them by selections of seed and soil, by grafting and pruning, 
these make up much of agricultural art. 

But with the advance of biological science, and in the 
farmer's and stock-breeder's art, these forces are coming to 
be counted on and employed as the mechanician counts on 
and employs the energies of steam and electricity. Thus 
they are now to be reckoned among the costly and controll- 
able economic forces to be taken into account in the com- 
putations of values. 

In the final analysis, all economic questions in the pro- 
duction and consumption of wealth, reduce to the question 
of the economy and conservation of energies the silent 
energies of nature above all others. The productive power 
of the soil, the working power of the domestic animals, and 
the steam or electric power generated by the consumption 
of costly fuels, all alike belong to these silent molecular ener- 
gies. The foods, or other gratifications which they produce, 
are only stored-up energy, ready to be transformed in turn 
to the finer energies of human life and happiness. 

The motor forces are the strongest where they can be 
used for the effectiveness of labor. They are the light and 
heat of the sun ; the force of gravitation, especially in falling 
water ; moving currents of wind ; and the expansive force of 
steam. These non-vital or inanimate forces of nature can 
only be employed through machinery costing great skill in 
its invention, construction and management. But when 
thus harnessed and controlled, these forces work with a tire- 
less power and steadiness which defy the competition of 
human energies. The most conspicuous feature of the 
industrial progress of this century is the rapid multiplication 
of machinery driven by one or more of these forces. And 
man is increasing his mastery of these forces in reducing the 
cost of operating the old forces of wind and water, and in 



154 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

introducing new forces, as the air engine and the electric 
motor. 

The molecular forces are effectual for some kinds of labor. 
They are dynamite, electricity and galvanism, magnetism, 
and the action of the chemical forces. And to these must 
be added, for combining and directing all kinds of forces, 
the mechanical principles or powers; the lever, the pully, 
the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, the wedge and the 
screw, are frequently the governors of the forces of nature 
for the productiveness of labor. 

The properties of matter embodied in these agents are 
the gifts of God, and of themselves cost us nothing. But in 
most cases, to make them available, some instrument must 
be employed which has cost labor. Thus, to control animal 
power, we need yoke or harness, cart or wagon ; a lens 
enables us to intensify the light and heat of the sun ; by 
means of a water-wheel or pendulum we command the force 
of gravitation ; by a wind-wheel we catch the force of moving 
air ; by a steam-engine we accumulate and direct the expan- 
sive force of steam ; by a hammer we combine the principle 
of the lever with the force of gravitation and the density of 
steel ; and the complicated machinery of a cotton-mill is but 
an adjustment of various means to the great purpose of 
physical labor, which we have seen to be to produce and 
direct motion. 

These instruments, when simple, like a hammer, a spade, 
a plane, are called tools. When complicated, like a fanning- 
mill, a spinning-jenny, or a steam-engine, they are called 
machines. Some instruments are required in every kind of 
labor, for human limbs and muscles and brains unassisted 
can accomplish but little. The inventions of the last fifty 
years have introduced elaborate machinery into all branches 
of industry. One man with a pair of horses, a plough, a 
drill, and a cultivator, can cultivate ten times as much land 
as he could with only a spade and hoe. 

This use of the agents and forces of nature increases the 
effectiveness of labor in two ways. It enables one man to 



THE NEW PROBLEM BEFORE THE WORLD. 1 55 

accomplish a work which must otherwise require a number 
of persons, and so either sets free a portion of labor for 
other occupations, or increases and lessens the cost of 
products. 

In a second place these industrial forces produce what no 
amount of labor unassisted by these forces could perform. 
The telegraph or telephone opens instantaneous communica- 
tion between places a hundred miles apart, while this com- 
munication under the slow means known a half century ago 
would have required several days of time, and a larger 
expense. 

The benefit from all this is that the means of satisfying 
human wants are being multiplied, and are conducing to the 
comfort and convenience of all classes of people. While in 
some few instances this may involve the danger of over- 
production ; it will be but temporary, as the extra labor will 
soon find a new field for operation. 

The good results far outweigh the evil ; and we may hope 
that the problem, now before the world, of adjusting the 
system of labor to the new condition of things, will soon find 
a happy solution, which shall be equitable and advantageous 
to all. 

A question of practical economy is. How shall labor be 
divided, so that different kinds of labor be distributed to 
different individuals and classes, so that all shall do that for 
which they are the best prepared, naturally and by training? 

In all civilized communities people take up different 
trades and professions according to their several capacities, 
tastes and circumstances. The results of labor are both 
increased and improved when the farmer and the baker, the 
blacksmith and the jeweler, the weaver and the tailor, the 
merchant, the lawyer and the doctor, each devotes his ener- 
gies to the work of his particular calling. This order of 
things marks the chief difference between savage and civil- 
ized life. 

But as a technical term of political economy, division of 
labor has a more specific application to labor employed on 



156 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

particular products. Suppose, for example, an establishment 
for the manufacture of watches is projected. The watch is 
made up of many different parts. Obviously it will econo- 
mize labor to assign each part to one man or set of men. 
The application of this principle necessitates two things. 
An analysis of the article to be made into simple and distinct 
parts ; and then, a distribution of these parts to the laborers, 
giving to each man, or set of men, the part for which they 
are best fitted. The special advantages of division of labor 
are that it shortens the time of training to become an expert 
workman. It is very plain that the manufacture of a single 
part of an article can be learned in a shorter time and better 
than a number of parts, or the whole article. And it keeps 
the mind and muscle on one line of work, which insures 
greater speed and greater accuracy. It saves the time pass- 
ing from one kind of work to another. If, as Franklin said, 
time is money, this is an important consideration. 

A division of labor often brings out superior tools to 
facilitate operations. Many most valuable inventions have 
been brought out by laborers whose whole attention was 
given to observe particular processes. New improvements 
in machinery and industries are constantly brought out by 
this means. In fact, by far the greater part of the most 
important inventions have originated in the close observation 
of workmen who were specialists in their business. 

Division of labor secures the service of all grades and 
diversities of talent and capacity. In the manufacture of 
fine glass-ware, one part of the process requires high artistic 
genius ; another, judgment and skill, the fruit of experience ; 
another, fullness and strength of lungs ; and others, the 
simplest forms of manual labor. It were poor economy to 
set a raw hand to engrave a delicate pattern, or to send the 
artist to carry the vessels from the furnace to the annealing- 
oven. By systematic arrangement each can be kept doing 
that for which he is best fitted, and for which he receives 
wages according to its importance. 

By a close application of these observations to American 



THE OUTLOOK FOR AMERICAN INDUSTRIES. 1 57 

industrial life, it will be seen that nowhere could these con- 
ditions for effective labor be better met. We have both the 
distribution of laborers through all the trades and professions, 
and the division of labor, to secure expert work in each part. 
Our labor is rightly constituted to make this the greatest 
industrial people of the world. With the right understand- 
ing of commercial law, the proper appHcation of economic 
principles, and the wise use of capital, this may reasonably 
be expected. 



CHAPTER IV. 

NATURAL, HUMAN AND MECHANICAL AGENTS OF LABOR. 

AS a base for all the forces brought into use by labor, 
is nature with its elements, forces and actions: both 
natural, as the flow of water, and chemical, as the process 
of fermentation. 

A natural agent is anything that can be appropriated, and 
is possessed of a productive power, derived from nature, and 
not from man. This term includes every manageable and 
productive force in the world, save man alone. Of the 
forces in nature of which we avail ourselves — while all are 
inherent in matter, and through its appropriation are made 
serviceable — some are inseparably connected with a product, 
and have no power beyond the one product to which they 
give value. Such are all the useful qualities of commodities ; 
the firmness of timber, the hardness of steel, the chemical 
action secured by the ingredients of any compound. Other 
forces give rise to independent products, and are not them- 
selves lost in those products. The horse produces a service 
without being destroyed by that service. These alone are 
strictly possessed of a productive power, and alone are natu- 
ral agents. 

Principal among the agents of nature for the exercise of 
labor is land. The earth is the great producer, and is the 
primal source of all the productions of labor. The value of 
land as a productive power depends on two things : its fer- 
tility and its location. In the first respect there is every 
variety, from the rich alluvial plain to the ragged mountain 
and sandy desert ; and in each variety, as far as fertility 
alone is concerned, there is a corresponding difference of 
value. But it is the second element which occasions the 
widest distinctions in the productive power of different lands, 

158 



THE LAND PROBLEM. 



159 



and causes their value to pass to the highest point. Certain 
causes determine, or have already determined, on each coun- 
try and continent, the centres of commerce and of human 
life. These centres remaining the same, value in land will 
increase as we approach them, and fade out as we leave 
them. Distance and difficulty of approach may overcome 
the greatest fertility, and render the best lands valueless. 
The neighborhood of a large city may impart to compara- 
tively poor lands a high value. 

The land problem is one of the most difficult in the poht- 
ical economy of England, and may assume critical phases in 
the United States. Land as an economic question is one in 
which all persons are deeply interested ; because out of the 
land in some form and way all must subsist. All human 
life must have a part in the occupation of land. Social and 
national conditions frequently rest upon the land question, 
and are adjusted by it. Here arises a great question of 
social science, which does not properly belong to this part of 
our discussion. 

The value of this agent varies under different conditions 
and locations. The strength of the soil, the supply of water, 
the distance to market, are all items which unite to determine 
for each section a standard of value with reference to all 
others. In all new settlements every man, quickened by his 
own interests, according to his own judgment and the judg- 
ment of the times in agriculture, establishes for himself, 
between a few of the most feasible locations still remaining 
unoccupied, a relative estimate, and selects that from which 
in the end he anticipates the largest return with the least 
labor. As this process goes on it is evident that later 
choices, from their very position, must suffer a disadvantage 
as compared with earlier ones. The same principle guides 
action on the farm. It is the most arable acre that is first 
plowed, the least arable that is last plowed. 

The value of land as a productive agent will be effected by 
many circumstances. Any change in climate or the centres 
of population by which the market is effected, or the unex- 



l6o THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

pected presence of an insect may change the values. All im- 
provement in the quality of the soil, the methods and imple- 
ments of agriculture and of transportation will increase the 
land value. The same general laws effecting agricultural 
lands will hold for mining lands. Their fertility in minerals, 
ease to operate and distance to market will determine their 
value as a productive agent. And another class of natural 
agents, briefly spoken of before, are those which can be used 
to impart power. The first used by any pioneer people is 
animal strength. The extent to which this force will be 
used, when brought in rivalry with the greater force of 
steam, will depend on its cost to labor and its utility for the 
purposes of labor. Much of the farm labor is performed by 
animals. This labor, though cheaper than human, because 
it provides a greater force, is more costly than is supposed. 
The original cost of the animal, the expense of care and 
keeping, gradual sinkage in value, liability to injury, if taken 
into account will show the cost of maintaining this working 
force. Estimates made in England show that the annual 
cost of a horse, in use on the farm, is $159.70. This includes 
the feed of the horse, annual wear of harness and imple- 
ments necessary to use the horse, and the annual deprecia- 
tion of the animal. Steam power for the same purposes, in 
those where it can be used, has been estimated at little more 
than one half as much as the cost of horse power. 

Wherever animal force can be brought into competition 
with other forces to produce power, its utility will wane. 
The law for this is that its cost is greater, while its power 
and speed for many kinds of labor are less. The rapid buggy- 
horse is giving way not only before the steam-carriage, but 
even before the bicycle. Not a few men are keeping this in 
preference to a horse, on account of its low cost and greater 
speed. A couple of young men, known to the author, rode 
thirty-two miles to the capital city of Ohio before breakfast 
on bicycles, and returned in even less time. Such inventions 
as these, in proportion to their utility, will change the 
economic value of animal force for the use of labor. 



THE THREE NATURAL AGENTS. l6l 

Wind, water and steam are the three inanimate natural 
agents used for imparting power. The most important pro- 
ductive office of wind is that of the saihng of vessels. To a 
small extent, where it is found in reliable currents, it may be 
used for moving machinery, as is frequently the case in the 
west, where it is economized for pumping water from wells. 
In such instances, it is strictly a natural agent. 

Water, as an agent for moving machinery, has but one 
rival, and that is steam. Its great advantages are: the 
absence of any first cost, and but little in sustaining it, and 
the simplicity and cheapness of the means by which it is 
applied. The possession of water privileges is dependent 
upon the possession of the land of which they are the inci- 
dents. A good water privilege, not being so open as a good 
soil to the judgment of all, is frequently overlooked, and 
sometimes involves at the outset an expense which for a 
long time prevents occupation. In this natural agent the 
elements of value are power, position and constancy. It 
must have force, for on the degree of this depends its pro- 
ductive power. This force, for its highest utility, must be 
regular, otherwise there is a loss of time and of use in the 
machinery employed ; and for this same highest utility the 
locality must be that which, in reference to the material 
employed and the commodities to be sold, involves the least 
transportation. These elements, in ever-varying proportions, 
exist in the value, each in its fluctuations modifying or 
wholly destroying it. 

There still remains the most powerful, the most con- 
trollable and most widely applicable of all the natural agents 
which are used for generating force — that is, steam. Em- 
ployed among the latest of these motive agents, it now per- 
forms the work of millions, without seeming to infringe upon 
the career left open to the others. It has created the call 
for the labor which it has performed. Its principal advan- 
tages are, that its amount is not given but within limits 
which include all practical wants ; can be fitted to the 
demand — the power conforming to the purpose, and not 
11 



l62 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the purpose to the power ; that it can be appHed at any 
place, indeed, oftentimes produces and accompanies a trans- 
fer in place, and that it is uniform through all times and 
seasons. It will be observed that these advantages strictly 
correspond to the disadvantages of water, and the three 
elements which unite to determine in any given instance the 
value of that natural agent. There is a correspondence not 
less strict between the disadvantages of steam and the 
advantages of water. The cost of sustaining steam is large ; 
the means — the machinery by which it is applied — is expen- 
sive and complicated. One of these agents is the comple- 
ment of the other. Steam can do much that water cannot 
do ; water does cheaply and readily much that steam would 
do with great cost and great difficulty. Owing to the corre- 
spondence between the advantages and deficiencies of these 
agents, by which the one is made the counterpart of the 
other, it will usually happen that when, for any given busi- 
ness, the cheapness of water is outweighed by its want of 
entire availability, the availability of steam will come in to 
overbalance its cost. In another class of cases the reverse 
of this would be true. 

All the natural agents, either from sharing the same limit- 
ations in quality and quantity as land, or from the same 
intimacy of their connection with and dependence on land, 
come under the same laws as agricultural labor. 

Labor represents the difficulty in the way of man attain- 
ing his desires. If he could secure his wishes without labor, 
the world's industries would never be developed. In this 
case, civilization would move slowly, if it would not be an 
impossibility altogether. In laboring to reach his wants, 
man not only makes use of animal force and the forces of 
nature, but in a higher sense all the agents furnished by 
himself. 

The first agent which man furnishes himself for labor 
purposes is human strength. It is the cheapest, because it 
costs less to develop and use, both by training and con- 
trolling. Products which simply require strength will be 



THE SUSTAINING CLASS TO POPULATION. 163 

cheaper than those requiring skill. The production and 
preparation of human strength is simply a part of the growth 
of the body, and is one of the incidents of life. As life is 
to be sustained and cared for, for other than economic pur- 
poses, there is no cost attached to the preparation of human 
strength as an agent for labor. 

This human strength is an available agent for labor 
between the years of twenty and seventy. This fifty years 
in each healthy normal life is the period of efficiency, or the 
sustaining period. An economist has said that " the effect- 
ive power of a nation is in the number of its people in the 
sustaining period, and in the proportion these bear to the 
dependent classes." The dependent classes, in the estimate 
of the observer, are all persons under the age of twenty, 
and all persons over the age of seventy, and which must be 
sustained by the sustaining classes. But there is quite a 
per cent of persons between these extreme points which 
cannot be classed with the sustaining classes ; the crippled, 
invalid, criminals in cells, and the indolent, are all unproduc- 
tive. Not more than one third of the population of the United 
States is made up of those under twenty and over seventy, 
yet about forty per cent of the people of the United States 
are unproductive ; and this is one of the most dangerous 
facts in our national economy. 

The productive or sustaining class in France is ten and 
•one third per cent more than one half the population : that 
is, for every one thousand of the productive class there are 
six hundred and fifty-seven unproductive. In England, the 
productive class is two and two thirds per cent greater than 
the sustained. In Ireland, the sustaining class is three and 
one half per cent less than one half the population : that is, 
every one thousand of the sustaining class must support, 
besides themselves, one thousand two hundred and one who 
are unproductive. Among the white population . of the 
United States the productive class is one per cent less than 
one half ; among the colored population, it is five per cent 
less than one half the population. 



164 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

These facts act to reduce the force of human strength as 
an economic agent in the industry of the country, as they 
also increase the cost by making the available portion of the 
population bear the living expense of the unproductive. 

The demand for the muscular force of human strength 
has diminished in step with the march of civilization, while 
the demand for the intellectual force of human strength has 
increased in the same ratio. 

Animal and mechanical agents are becoming substitutes 
for human strength in all employments where mere strength 
of muscle was required. In uncivilized lands and times men 
transport goods, carry travelers, dig the soil, row vessels, run 
as messengers, spin, weave and turn the wheels of rough 
machinery, furnishing with their own muscles the working 
force of all labor. In enlightened lands and times, all these 
things, and more, are done by the harnessed forces of nature, 
and man has mostly to but direct and superintend their work 
to have accomplished, and better and cheaper than before, 
his labor. But while the demand for mere musular force in 
labor has relatively diminished, the demand for men has 
increased. Machinery will never drive men out of labor. A 
greater proportion of men will be required to use the genius 
of intelligence to plan, construct and manage machinery; to 
search out materials, to superintend labor, to distribute and 
transport goods, and to minister to a thousand new wants. 
Human strength must forever remain a valuable factor in 
labor. 

The growing necessity for intelligence in labor shows us 
the demand for skill. Skill is the product of the intelligence. 
It is " the knowing how" to do a thing. It is a quality that 
is gained by close reflection and long experience. Continued 
use of any portion of mind or physical energy in performing 
a certain act, perfects the ability to do it quickly and in the 
best way. It may become a habit. The rapid movements 
of a skilled mechanic appear almost automatic in accuracy. 
This is observed in the skilled performance on an instrument. 

All acts of the mind are at first made slowly and with 



THE ADVANTAGE OF SKILLED LABOR. 1 65 

uncertainty. At each repetition the mind travels a more 
beaten path and with more ease. This, carried to a point of 
accuracy, Js skill. 

This is a factor of more value in labor than human strength. 
It requires more attention and pains to qualify it as an agent 
of labor, and its products are better in the accuracy of their 
finish. The extra value of its products must be the eco- 
nomic argument for its training. Instruction in the art, in 
the sciences, and in social duties, is the most fruitful of all 
culture. This product of skill, which is accurate labor, is 
incapable of being outrun in the race of rivalry by any 
agent which may hope to be substituted for it in the indus- 
tries, and only grows by its own activity. So, while it is 
more costly in its training than human strength, it is more 
economic, as it becomes stronger and more perfect by feeding 
upon itself. 

The comparative values of strength and skill are carried 
to the products of both, and lend something of their varying 
costliness, both to the prices of the labor and to the value of 
the products. Labor requiring but little except mere human 
strength will be cheap labor, and the product of the labor 
will be cheap ; while labor requiring high skill will command 
high wages, and the products of such labor will be costly. 
A man plowing the ground for a crop may work as hard as 
the artisan at a delicate piece of machinery, yet his labor is 
cheaper and his product is not so costly, and for the above 
reason. 

Another advantage which skill has over mere strength is 
that it has the power both to aid strength, and in some 
instances even to supplant it altogether. The skilled work- 
man, by a more adroit use of his strength, will accomplish 
labor impossible to an unskilled workman, though the 
strength of the latter may be the greater. Skill knows how 
to take advantage of all favoring circumstances and condi- 
tions ; finds the easiest way to move a mass ; makes one end 
of a load balance the other ; and by such ingenious devices 
makes its strength go for double that of the unskilled 



1 66 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

laborer. The boy going to mill, who put heavy stones in 
one end of the sack to balance the grain in the other, instead 
of dividing the grain, gives an illustration of this principle in 
the economy of labor. 

Skill is what makes the expert in labor. And this is a 
character who must demand more attention by the industries. 
His knowledge has a marketable value not yet as high as it 
should be in this country. The expert mechanic is worth 
more to his employer than the laborer who is not an expert, 
because his product will be neater and better in quality; 
The expert scholar is worth more to the; people than one 
who has no special skill in any direction, because his product 
will be more attractive and pleasing in style, more solid in 
character, and more reliable in fact. The economics of labor 
demand that this distinction be made. 

Human strength and human skill constitute the agents 
man contributes to labor. Besides these, and the agents of 
nature, there are mechanical agents; these are the results 
of man's combined strength and skill, yet they form a dis- 
tinct class of forces for the use of labor. These mechanical 
agents are : all tools, implements and machines, as instru- 
ments of labor. These are the forces with which strength 
and skill do their work. They aid man in doing what, with- 
out them, he could not do at all, or only accomplish by 
harder work, by a longer time, and only then imperfectly. 
Although tools, and machinery of all kinds, form a part of 
capital, yet they are a factor of labor, as labor cannot be 
done without them, and they form an actual, known force in 
the process of labor. Tools are as old as labor itself. The 
man who used a stick to defend his life, or a stone to crush 
his corn, used these things as tools. And this use of them 
was the germ and promise of all the present machinery of 
the world. Tools conduce to labor by aiding strength or 
skill, or both. The lever, pully, wheel, axle and the wedge, 
are the simple elements of all machinery; they all add to 
man's strength and skill. He could not do so much as may 
be done by a simple machine, nor could he do it as skillfully. 



THE UTILITY OF MACHINERY. 167 

Machinery has contributed marvelously to man's power over 
nature and its resistances. The drainage of the low lands of 
Holland, which gave to human habitation seventy square 
miles of dry land at the lake's bottom, was accomplished by 
enormous engines, one of which worked ten pumps and 
lifted, at each stroke, one hundred and twelve tons of water 
to a height of ten feet. It is doubtful if such a triumph of 
labor could have been attained by the whole working force 
of the nation, without the aid of machinery. At the cele- 
brated iron works of Creusat, France, there is a steam- 
hammer weighing eighty tons, and on its huge anvil a mass 
of iron of one hundred tons can be handled easily by means 
of four powerful cranes. This is equal to the lifting power 
of sixteen hundred stout men. A labor agent like this is of 
almost incalculable force in the world's industries. 

At the other extreme are machines to accomplish work, 
the product of which is as small as this is mighty. The 
watch machinery makes screws so small and fine that they 
can only be handled by the use of the microscope, yet this 
work is done with such precision that those of one watch 
will fit any other of the same class. 

Machinery cheapens the products of labor, and this is one 
of the chief advantages of its use. The wealth of the world 
consists, not in producing goods at high cost and selling at 
high prices, but in producing at the lowest possible cost and 
selling at a low price. The goods now made by machinery 
are vastljij. cheaper then the same goods formerly produced 
by hand labor. 

The cotton goods illustrate this. Up to the year 1769, 
cotton was spun by hand. Then the cost of spinning was 
about twenty-five shillings per pound. In 1876, spinning by 
machinery cost a little over two shillings per pound. The 
quantity which one workman can produce with machinery 
has increased as much as the cost has been reduced. In 1779, 
the French spinners in England banded to break in pieces all 
the spinning-jenneys, as destroying their trade. The machine 
survived, and in 1876, the persons employed with these 



l68 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

machines in England were nearly five hundred thousand, and 
the wages by far better than under the old regime. They 
run over forty-one million spindles, which consumed one bill- 
ion two hundred and eighty million three hundred thousand 
pounds of cotton. Under the old system of hand-labor it 
would require the whole population of England, men, women 
and children, to make up this amount of raw material. 

The first cotton mill furnished with complete machinery, 
was opened in Rhode Island in 1790, with seventy-two spin- 
dles. In 1870, the number of spindles in the United States 
was seven million one hundred and thirty-two thousand four 
hundred and fifteen ; and the cotton consumed was three 
hundred and ninety-eight million three hundred and two 
thousand two hundred and fifty seven pounds. Machines 
for weaving cotton came much later than for spinning. In 
181 3, all the cotton yarn in America was still manufactured 
into cloth by hand-looms. In 1825, the retail price of calico, 
for dresses, was fifty cents a yard. In 1883, prints of the 
same grade retail at five cents a yard. Then a week's wages 
of a servant girl would buy one yard of calico ; now it will 
buy six dresses of ten yards each. 

This most remarkable industrial revolution has been 
effected by modern industrial machinery, and shows what a 
mighty force is that of mechanical agents. The economic 
results of these industrial changes, brought about by the use 
of mechanical forces, have been almost beyond all computa- 
tion. The whole character of labor has been changed. The 
demand for the old form of labor, where human strength was 
the principal factor, has well nigh died out. The cost of 
production has been greatly reduced, which has resulted in 
lessening the market price of products. The amount of 
products of all classes has grown wondrously, and has been 
distributed among a greater number of people ; until the 
comforts now enjoyed by nearly all, formerly were only 
within the reach of the most wealthy. The products being 
larger in quantity than local or national demand, have been 
compelled to seek more distant markets, and this has widened 



ONE CAUSE OF FINANCIAL PANICS. 1 69 

commerce. As a result of all this, the accumulated wealth 
of the world has greatly multiplied ; and by this means there 
has been created a larger and cheaper capital for new invest- 
ments or uses. New forms of industry have been created, 
as capital seeks employment, which have furnished a wider 
field and better pay for labor. 

There is one disastrous result that sometimes happens 
from a crowded condition of production. Manufacturers 
are driven to strenuous competition for the markets, and 
crowd down prices and wages to a ruinous point. The labor 
strikes of the past ten years in the United States, pretend, at 
least, to have their excuse in this condition of the labor 
question. The evil, when once it occurs, must have its own 
cure, in the failure of some of the manufacturers, or in the 
forced change of production. When the markets are glutted 
at a time when the goods are reduced to the lowest possible 
price, and a financial depression occurs, the markets are 
ruined, and likely the manufacturer with them. 

But this condition of labor only is possible through the 
unwise spirit of pushing competition too far ; and this is a 
habit that political economy most severely condemns. A 
moderate competition, designed to keep prices at a low profit, 
yet sufificient to pay both the labor and the manufacturer, 
may be the " hfe of business ; " but when pushed under an 
envious commercial motive, for the mere purpose of driving 
a rival from business, is ruinous to trade, and is a breach of 
commercial honor. Under a proper balance of supply and 
demand, the manufacturer will find at all times a safe market 
for his wares ; and when the supply becomes too great for 
the local and national demand, and cannot be advantageously 
disposed of in foreign markets, there should be a change of 
industries from that which is over crowded to some field of 
labor where the supply falls far below the demand. 

By such precaution, the great revolution in labor caused 
by the innovation of the mechanical agents, supplanting both 
the natural and largely the human agents, can be directed 
wholly to the good of humanity. 



I/O THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

This discussion of mechanical agents cannot more fittingly 
be closed than by giving Francis Jeffrey's graphic description 
of the steam engine, its power and use : 

" It has become a thing, stupendous alike for its force and 
its flexibility; for the prodigious power which it can exert, 
and the ease, precision, and ductility with which it can be 
varied, distributed and applied. The trunk of an elephant, 
that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is nothing as to it. It 
can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal before 
it ; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as a gossamer ; 
and lift up a ship of war, like a bauble in the air. It can 
embroider muslin and forge anchors; cut steel into ribands, 
and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and 
waves. 

" It would be dif^cult to estimate the value of the benefits 
which these inventions have conferred upon the country. 
There is no branch of industry that has not been indebted 
to them, and in all material, they have not only widened 
most magnificently the field of its exertions, but multiplied 
a full thousand fold the amount of its productions. It is 
our improved steam engine that has fought the battles 
of Europe, and exalted and sustained, through the late 
tremendous contest, the political greatness of our land. It 
is the same great power which enables us to pay our national 
debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle in which we are 
still engaged, with the skill and capital of countries less 
oppressed with taxation. 

" But these are poor and narrow views of its importance. 
It has increased, indefinitely, the mass of human comforts 
and enjoyments, and rendered cheap and accessible, all over 
the world, the materials of wealth and prosperity. It has 
armed the feeble hand of man, in short, with a power to 
which no limits can be assigned; completed the dominion of 
mind over the most refractory qualities of matter ; and laid 
a sure foundation for all those future miracles of mechanical 
power, which are to aid and reward the labors of after 
generations." 



CHAPTER V. 

CENTRALIZED LABOR IN GREAT INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISH- 
MENTS. 

THE use of labor-saving machinery unites many persons 
in the same process of production, and necessitates the 
parts of the labor being distributed among different classes 
of laborers. There cannot be any thorough division of 
labor except in connection with the use of mechanical agents. 
So that it requires both the centralization and division of 
labor to run large establishments, in which the full benefits 
of these means of increased productiveness may be realized. 

For their successful operation, these establishments 
require a great many things which labor, in its uncentralized 
form, cannot command. They require large investments of 
capital in buildings, machinery and material righit at the 
beginning of their operations. Besides they should have a 
surplus fund for the purpose of operating leading agencies 
throughout the country, and for the purpose of advertising. 
They require a large number of laborers, of varied capacity 
and suited for various departments of work, and these organ- 
ized under one leading management. They require a large 
amount of material ready to use, and a rapid production of 
goods in great quantities. They require a market that wil! 
meet the facilities for an extensive and wide distribution. 
They will require great executive ability of two kinds : that 
of a careful internal management of the time and work of the 
laborers and the processes of the labor; secondly, of the 
financial affairs of the company. 

The first two things to be secured are capital and labor. 
In a new country there is little accummulation of either 
wealth or population ; the demand for particular articles is 

171 



172 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

small ; facilities for transportation, which would widen the 
market, are few; and the first emigrants, though young and 
energetic, have yet to develop mutual confidence and high 
executive ability. Hence labor begins with each man's 
doing by himself all kinds of work with few and simple tools. 
But in due time diverse industry is developed as naturally 
as a tree grows. As wealth is accumulated and population 
increases, new wants arise and new means of satisfying them 
are provided. As roads and bridges are made, and railways 
push themselves on, the market is widened, enterprise is 
stimulated, talents are brought forward and great establish- 
ments are set up for production on a large scale. Such a 
natural growth is far more healthy and sound than the pre- 
mature development which comes from forced, artificial 
appliances. 

The most disastrous thing fhat can befall an establish- 
ment is lack of great executive and financial management. 
Economy and administrative skill are the two elements 
which must combine for success. 

With all these conditions met, the highest productive 
power of labor is attained. And the community in general 
is benefitted by this centralized labor, as it could not other- 
wise be. The increased productiveness resulting from cen- 
tialized labor makes an increased demand for labor. Sup- 
pose a community of one hundred men to acquire, by their 
labor and capital, every year, just enough to support them- 
selves, after defraying the expenses of their several estab- 
lishments. So long as this state of things continued there 
would be no increased demand for laborers ; for there would 
be no additional capital with which to maintain them. The 
young must therefore emigrate, or else there will be a com- 
petition among laborers for work, and thus wages will fall. 
But suppose that by some new mode of increased productive- 
ness the capital be increased in a single year twenty-five per 
cent, there will then be a demand for the industry of a greater 
number, say twenty-five additional laborers; since this addi- 
tional capital can produce nothing unless it be united with 



BENEFIT OF MACHINERY IN CENTRALIZED LABOR. 1 73 

labor. If there be not twenty-five additional laborers to be 
immediately produced, wages must rise, because there will 
be a competition among capitalists for labor, and children 
and persons who, with the former prices could earn nothing, 
will now be employed. And if the demand for labor arising 
from this increase of capital, could not be thus supplied, 
those engaged in less profitable employment in other dis- 
tricts and other countries would come in to supply the 
deficiency. Such is always seen to be the fact. Population 
follows capital. It goes where capital goes, and it concen- 
trates where capital accumulates, and it retires when capital 
retires. And hence, in a whole country, where the number 
of inhabitants is limited, the increase of capital must raise 
the rate of wages. And hence, by just so much as increased 
productiveness of labor increases the amount of capital, it 
must also tend to raise the price of labor throughout a 
whole country. From which it is seen that the obvious ten- 
dency of the mechanical agents in the fields of centralized 
labor is to increase the wages of laborers in general. 

Let it be supposed that by the use of the present machin- 
ery, centralized labor with one hundred men is able to 
manufacture cotton cloth at fifty cents a yard, and that the 
amount which can be produced is just sufificient to supply 
the wants of the district for which they labor.- At this price, 
no consumers, but those with one thousand dollars a year, 
can afford to purchase cotton cloth ; and, then, of course, the 
demand is limited exclusively to them. Suppose, now, that 
improved machinery enables fifty men to manufacture as 
large an amount of cotton cloth as one hundred men could 
manufacture before, and the consequence is, that cotton 
cloth-is sold at twenty-five cents a yard. It is evident, that 
if the demand be precisely doubled, there will be wanted just 
as many laborers as before. If fifty men can do the same 
amount of work requiring one hundred under the former 
capacity of machinery, and if there be double the demand, 
arising from the greater cheapness of the product, then, it 
clearly follows that there can be an increase of wages ; and 



174 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

it is also evident, that every degree of increase of demand, 
must be a benefit to the laborers. 

The greater productiveness of centralized labor promotes 
the general welfare in the increased production and the 
cheapened cost of products. These large establishments 
even economize material as well as labor. In material they 
can save every item of utility in the scraps and odds and 
ends which in production on a small scale would be thrown 
away. Thus, in the large packing-houses, the hoofs, the 
horns, the bones, even the blood and refuse matter, of the 
animals slaughtered, are utilized. It economizes supervision 
also; one man of brains being able to oversee and direct the 
operations of five hundred or a thousand workmen easily and 
effectively. As a consequence, the cost of articles is reduced, 
so that thousands instead of hundreds of people can afford 
to use them. Thus the great cotton-factories have brought 
down the cost of common muslin from fifty cents to six 
cents per yard, and all classes of people can use it freely and 
abundantly. 

And centralized labor increases the prospect of the steady 
employment of labor. There is periodic alarm in the United 
States lest labor be thrown out under its competition with 
labor-saving machinery. But there can be no fundamental 
dispute between machinery and labor. Labor is only a 
factor in the consideration and effort for happiness as it con- 
tributes in some way to wealth of some kind. As long as 
the wealth of a country is growing, labor will have to be the 
means of producing that wealth ; and the greater the wealth 
the greater the demand for labor. In the field of the large 
establishments the increase of production and reduced cost 
always makes an increase in the demand for labor, instead of 
diminishing it. In England, the laborers in the weaving 
factories were greatly benefited by the introducing of the 
power-loom. The general tendency of centralized labor, less 
occasional reverses caused by bad foresight in creating an 
over-production, is to give constant employment to workmen 
of all kinds. 



MORAL ADVANTAGE OF CENTRALIZED LABOR. 1 75 

The effect of the increased productiveness of centraHzed 
labor is a happy one upon the person consuming these 
products. By increased productiveness every consumer is 
actually made richer ; that is, he is able by the same amount 
of labor to procure many more products. This is the same 
thing to him as though his income were increased. If a man, 
before the advent of cotton cloth manufacturing machinery, 
needed one hundred yards of cotton cloth, he would have to 
pay fifty dollars for the year's supply, at the price of fifty 
cents a yard. But the machinery reduced the price to 
twenty-five cents a yard. This laborer could now furnish his 
yearly supply of cloth for twenty-five dollars instead of fifty, 
saving just twenty-five dollars in this one instance alone, 
which is the same as that much of an increase to his income. 

Another advantage is seen, greater in its moral reach than 
all this, and is a remarkable consequence of the introduction 
of machinery and the consequent centralization of labor. 
While all the labor of man is necessary to support mere 
physical existence, there can be no opportunity for intel- 
lectual cultivation. As soon, however, as he arrives at that 
condition of productiveness of labor in which he is able to 
provide for his physical wants with less than all his time and 
effort, opportunity is afforded for intellectual development. 
At this point commences the dawn of intellectual improve- 
ment. As increased productiveness affords more abundant 
leisure, improvement advances; and as soon again as by 
improved intellectual power man begins to discover and 
apply the laws of nature, a vast accession is made to the 
power of human productiveness. Henceforth these two 
forces conspire to assist each other. Increased productive- 
ness allows of increased time for investigation, discovery and 
invention ; and discovery and invention increase the power 
of productiveness. The more actively these act and react 
upon each other, the more rapid is the progress of society, 
and the more rapidly accelerated is the movement of civili- 
zation. 

If this be so, we see how puerile is the prejudice which 



1/6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

frequently exists against the use of labor-saving machinery, 
since the introduction of such machinery, more than any- 
thing else, tends permanently to improve the condition of 
the laborer. We see, also, how groundless is the opinion 
that education and science are without practical benefit, and 
that philosophers and students are merely a useless burden 
upon the community ; since it is knowledge which has given 
to us all the advantages which we possess over savages, and 
it is the application of that knowledge which furnishes 
employment for nine tenths of the whole community. We 
see, also, how short-sighted is that national selfishness, which 
desires to limit and restrict the intercourse between nations ; 
since it is for the interest of each nation to improve to the 
utmost its own advantages, and to procure, by exchange 
with other nations, those productions for the creation of 
which it possesses, by nature, inferior facilities. 



CHAPTER VI. 

RESTRICTIONS UPON THE POLICY OF CENTRALIZED LABOR. 

THE great effort of centralized labor is productiveness 
as large as possible. To reach this the division of labor 
is the great policy. But there are limitations to this division 
of labor, caused by restrictions. 

The very nature of a manufacturing process will suggest 
a hmit to the division of labor. To secure a division of 
labor a work must be analyzed into its several parts, and 
these parts distributed among as many classes of laborers, 
each class having a special skill for the part assigned it. The 
division of labor in all cases will stop with the number of 
parts into which the article to be manufactured can be 
divided. In pin-making, the straightening of the wire is one 
operation, cutting into equal lengths is another, sharpening 
the points is another, putting on the heads is another. Each 
operation may be given to a distinct body of workmen; 
but when this operation is extended to its simple divisions of 
work the hmit is reached. For it is no division of labor to 
have two men perform the same operation. An establish- 
ment that works on this policy will be able to • undersell 
another that does not carry it to the same degree of perfec- 
tion. This policy has been fully carried out where the work 
has been reduced to its simple parts, each part assigned to a 
distinct class of laborers, and where these divisions of labor 
will be in such proportions as to exactly and fully employ 
each other. The greater the extent to which this is per: 
fected the greater the economy of the enterprise, and conse- 
quently the greater the financial success of the establishment. 

A limitation on the division of labor, caused by the 

restricton of an ultimate analysis of the work to be done, is 

generally an advantageous one, as it is a natural one, and 
12 177 



1/8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

harmony with nature is often the finest wisdom. But when 
the division of labor is Hmited by an inadequate capital the 
business may suffer. Division of labor in large establish- 
ments cannot be carried on, unless the management have 
sufficient capital to employ, at the same time, all the persons 
necessary to such a division, and to keep them so employed 
until the proceeds of their work enable him to furnish them 
again with fresh material. This is, of course, a considerable 
outlay, and supposes a considerable accumulation of the pro- 
ceeds of pre-exerted industry. Hence, in a poor, or in a new 
country, there can be but little division of labor. No one 
has more than enough capital to employ himself, and, per- 
haps, one or two laborers; and hence, each individual per- 
forms all the operations of each process, and frequently those 
of several processes. The same individual is the farrierj 
blacksmith, cutler, and, perhaps, wheelwright, for a whole 
settlement. To illustrate this by a single instance: If a 
nailer be able to purchase no larger amount of iron and coal 
than he can use in the manufacture of nails in a day, he 
must perform all the parts of the process himself; and, of 
course, must labor very disadvantageously. As soon, how- 
ever, as he is able to double his capital, he may employ 
another person to work with him, and they may then intro- 
duce a division of labor. When he has tripled his capital, 
he may employ another workman, and carry his division still 
further. He may thus go on until he has reduced the pro- 
cess to its simplest elements. When he has gone thus far, 
the accumulation of his annual capital will enable him to 
invest something in fixed capital. He will thus be able to 
purchase some of the simpler machines, by which some of 
the parts of his process may be executed. To these he will 
add others, as he advances in wealth, until his accumulated 
means enable him to combine them into one machine, for 
completing the whole process. Thus he becomes a manu- 
facturer, and derives the larger part of his revenue from the 
use of his fixed capital. At every step his gains will be 
greater, and' at the same time the price of his product will 



RESTRICTIONS ON DIVISION OF LABOR. 1 79 

become less. It is not pretended that all these changes 
always, or frequently, take place within the lifetime of a 
single individual. The progress of society is not generally 
so rapid. Yet they do occur sometimes, and they show the 
tendency of things and the power of accumulated capital. 

Division of labor may be restricted by a limited demand. 
Suppose that in a certain district, on which a certain estab- 
lishment is dependent for its market, there is a demand for 
one hundred pounds of glass per day, and that this amount 
can' be made by two men. If three men could, by division 
■of labor, make two hundred pounds per day, there would be 
but small gain, either to the laborers or to the public, as 
they would have to lie idle half the time, and for this they 
must be paid. If they were employed for only half the 
time, their wages must be double, and thus the expense of a 
whole day would rest on the production of a half day. 

When the number of inhabitants is small, as in a newly- 
settled country, or in an isolated situation, the demand must, 
of course, correspond to their number. One hundred men 
will require but one tenth as many hats or shoes as one 
thousand. It is on this account that wealth accumulates 
most rapidly on large rivers, or on through lines of road, as 
the producers are not limited to a local demand, but can 
easily ship to other points. 

The cost of production has a like effect upon the division 
of labor. The greater the cost of the product, the smaller 
will be the number of persons who are able to purchase it. 
Hence, the less will be the demand; and hence, also, the 
less opportunity will there be for division of labor. And, 
besides, the greater the cost of the article, the greater 
amount of capital is required in order to produce it by 
division of labor. Hence, this cause operates in two ways 
to prevent the employment of this means of effecting the 
reduction of price. Thus, if a community consist of one 
thousand men, and of these one hundred be worth one 
thousand dollars per year; four hundred be worth five hun- 
dred dollars, and the remainder be worth but two hundred 



l8o THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

and fifty dollars per year; and an article be produced 
within the reach of only the, first of these classes, it can 
have but one hundred purchasers. If it come within the 
reach of the second class, it will have five hundred ; and if it 
come within the reach of the third class, it will have one 
thousand purchasers. Hence it is, that division o"f labor is 
but sparingly used in the manufacture of rich jewelry and in 
articles of expensive luxury, while it is so universally used 
in the production of all articles of common use. Hence the 
benefits of the division of labor are vastly greater to the 
middle and lower classes than to the rich. These means of 
increased production reduce the cost of necessary articles to 
the lowest rate, and, of course, bring them as far as possible 
within the reach of all. 

The division of labor extends even to the means and 
facilities of transportation. The cost of an article depends 
not only on the cost of its original production, but also upon 
the cost necessary to bring it to the consumer. Coal may 
be very cheap at a coal mine, but if it must be borne on the 
shoulders of men to the consumer, it would, at a few miles 
from the mine, become so dear that no one would be able to 
use it. The demand would be so small that there would be 
no profit either in investing capital in the machinery or in 
employing division of labor to raise it from the mine. But 
if horses be used to transport it to the consumer, the demand 
will increase. Again, if, for horses, canals and railroads be 
substituted, it will become cheap, and the demand will 
increase still more ; and with every such improvement that 
circle of consumption expands, of which the mine is the 
centre. The same principle applies to manufactures, spe- 
cially those of iron or heavy ware; and it applies just in 
proportion as transportation forms a large or small part of 
the cost to the consumer. And thus, in general, we see the 
principle on which facilities for internal communication 
improve the condition of both the other branches of indus- 
•try. For this reason, the price of land and grain rises in a 
district through which a canal or a railroad passes ; and for 



HOW TRANSPORTATION AFFECTS PRODUCTION. l8l 

the same reason manufactories may at one time be success- 
fully established in situations where they at another time 
would have been useless, if not ruinous to the proprietor. 
And still more generally, we see the manner in which all the 
branches of labor assist each other. A railroad or a canal 
can never profitably be constructed in a country where there 
is nothing to be transported ; but where agriculture, manu- 
factures and commerce are productive, and hence require a 
large amount of transportation, there these facilities are 
immediately in demand. Were Liverpool and Manchester 
to decline, of what use would be the railroad between them ? 
And, on the other hand, the railroad between them, by 
reducing the cost of all articles bought and sold, diminishes 
the cost of living in both places, enables the producer to 
come into market with greater advantages, increases the 
profit in all kinds of industry, facilitates the accumulation of 
capital, and thus adds vastly to the accumulating wealth 
of both cities. 

As the laws which seem to affect labor are studied with 
direct reference to the manufacturing interests of the United 
States, division of labor will secure more and better atten- 
tion, the restrictions will be more and more removed, and 
the great productive power of labor will be used for the 
benefit of the whole people. Selfishness is condemned by 
industrial as well as by moral law. 



. CHAPTER VII. 

THE LABOR QUESTION IN ENGLAND. 

NO question is of such economic importance as the labor 
question. The welfare of laborers, social and intel- 
lectual, as well as financial, is pushing to the front. It must 
receive, as it deserves, attention. The laboring class have 
the same rights as any other class, and all should be interested 
in seeing that they have their rights, and that they are 
maintained. 

England has, for a century, been one of the greatest 
manufacturing countries on the globe, and nowhere has the 
attention been given to solve the question of labor as there. 
The great industrial competition between England and the 
United States, and the union existing on all other matters, 
as the arts, sciences, and commerce, deserve an attention to 
a consideration of the labor question in England, before 
coming to that of the United States. 

In 1776, Adam Smith, the early master of the science 
of political economy, said : " When, in any country, the 
demand for those who live by wages is continually increas- 
ing, when every year furnishes employment for a greater 
number than had been employed the year before, the work- 
men have no occasion to combine to raise their wages. The 
scarcity of hands occasions competition among the masters, 
who bid against each other to get workmen." In 18 17, 
Ricardo wrote : " Labor is dear when it is scarce, and cheap 
when it is plentiful." The labor condition in England at the 
present time, confirms these simple principles of industrial 
science, as expressed by the leading minds in the study of 
the labor question. Trade in England is depressed to a 
degree seldom equaled in the history of English commerce. 

183 



THE ENGLISH CONTRACT SYSTEM. 183 

The tendency of the rate of wages has been for years in the 
downward direction. 

It might have been expected that the industrial principles 
of Smith and Ricardo would have been endorsed universally ; 
yet few English employers act as if they had any faith in the 
accuracy of these deductions from the universal experience 
of mankind. 

It is a favorable prospect, that in the relations between 
labor and capital in England, there seems to be a gradual 
abatement of hostile feelings. The solicitude of the employ- 
ers for the welfare of the working class, has been exhibited 
in a most practical form in the recent amendments of the 
laws relating to trade combinations. By an act passed in the 
session of 1875, ''all breaches of contract between masters and 
workmen cease to be, in the eye of the law, criminal offenses. 
Damages may be recovered from v/orkmen for breach of con- 
tract of service, and the courts may, at the request of 
defendant, order specific performance of his contract in place 
of damages, with the alternative of a short term of imprison- 
ment, in default of his new undertaking. But criminal and 
penal proceedings can no longer be taken." 

By another act of the same session, trade combinations 
ceased to be subject to indictment for conspiracy, except in 
cases where the objects of the compact were themselves 
legally punishable. It is now admitted by the warmest 
advocates of the rights of workmen, that the state of the 
English law, as it affects the industrial classes, no longer pre- 
sents any grievances, of which they have reason to complain. 

The most substantial grievance of the British workman, 
is of a nature which cannot be removed by legislation. In 
the United Kingdom, after centuries of active enterprise in 
the pursuit of commerce, capital has been accumulated in a 
more ample store, in proportion to the population, than in 
any other country in the world. The result is that the ordi- 
nary rate of interest is lower in England than in any other 
money market in Europe. Money is only worth about three 
per cent in London. 



1 84 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Money being abundant, and the rate of interest low, out- 
lets for investments are eagerly sought for. It is in London, 
that foreign countries in a state of impending bankruptcy, 
have of late conducted their principal borrowing operations, 
and their appeals to a credulous and ill-informed public have 
not been made in vain. If, in any trade or business, whether 
in commerce or agriculture, in mines or in shops, at home or 
in the remotest regions of the earth, a return has been antic- 
ipated, ever so little beyond the low nominal rate of interest, 
eager and credulous people have hitherto been only too 
easily induced to embark their capital. A large proportion 
of the annual savings of the country, have thus been squan- 
dered away in injudicious speculations; and, even when cap- 
ital has been attracted to a legitimate trade, if the profits 
have, for ever so short a time, exceeded what may be called 
the nominal rate of interest, over-production has ensued, and 
the period of short-lived prosperity has been followed by a 
long depression. A serious fall in the value of manufactured 
goods has been inevitable ; and the workmen, whose wages 
have been unduly advanced by excessive demand for their 
labor in prosperous times, have been compelled to submit to 
a reduction, or to suffer the more cruel alternative of entire 
loss of employment. 

The recent history of the iron trade presents a striking 
illustration of this. A very large per cent of coal produced 
is consumed in the manufacture of iron. After a long period 
of depression, the price of iron rose, in 1 871, to a degree 
which Gladstone said had advanced, not by steps, but by 
strides, leaps and bounds. These high prices implied a high 
rate of profit ; and at once everybody who could engage in 
the iron and coal trades, applied his utmost energies to the 
increase of production, while new capital for the develop- 
ment of these industries was obtained from the inexperienced 
investors who are ever ready for any wild scheme to increase 
their wealth. The great pressure thus brought to bear on 
the labor market caused a rapid advance in wages. 

Can it be a subject of surprise that such an inflation as 



EFFECT OF STRIKES ON THE MARKET. 1 85 

this was promptly followed by a corresponding reaction? As 
prices fell, the masters required that the men should accept 
reduced wages, and a long conflict naturally ensued. The 
workshop became the seat of negligence and incapacity; 
and evils, which could be cured only by the sharp physic of 
privation, were abundant. 

Thus, after a disastrous struggle, representing a loss in 
wages to the workmen estimated by Lord Aberdare at three 
millions sterling, the truth of the doctrine laid down by 
Adam Smith was once more confirmed : " The condition of 
the laboring poor is hard in the stationary, and miserable in 
the declining, state. The progressive state of trade is in 
reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different 
orders of society. The stationary is dull ; the declining mel- 
ancholy." It cannot be too strongly impressed on the intel- 
ligent minds of the operative classes that it is only when 
trade is in a progressive state that wages can be increased. 
Strikes, in a rising market, are generally successful. " Strikes, 
against a falling market, inevitably terminate in disaster to 
the workmen. 

There have been labor combinations formed which have 
contributed somewhat in changing the condition of the 
laborer. In the finished iron and engineering trades the 
workmen have succeeded, within the space of a few years, in 
reducing the hours of labor to nine a day, and they have 
obtained a substantial advance of wages. 

The agricultural laborer has received the most noticeable 
benefit from these combinations. Until within a recent 
period the condition of the rural population in many dis- 
tricts was a dishonor to a country abounding in riches and 
resources of every kind. The blessings of education and 
political intelligence had not been extended — even now they 
are but partially enjoyed — among the inhabitants of the 
secluded villages and hamlets of the agricultural districts. 
The humble tillers of the soil had no conception of a system 
of trade combination. In their complete ignorance of any 
other condition of life than that which they had inherited 



1 86 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

from their forefathers, they had no definite aim or plans for 
the improvement of their lot. They endured their poverty 
with dogged submission. At length, however, the rural 
laborer found a powerful and eloquent advocate in the per- 
son of Joseph Arch. By arguments based upon a more or 
less accurate appreciation of the facts, but in the main con- 
clusive, the laborer was urged to ask for an advance of 
wages. The demands made were not extravagant. In Suf- 
folk, for example, the men asked that their wages should be 
increased from thirteen to fourteen shillings a week. The 
modest request was met on the part of the farmers, by 
the formation of a counter association, and ultimately the 
laborers throughout an extensive district were locked out. 

The course adopted by the employers was condemned by 
all impartial and thoughtful men. In his characteristic way 
the Bishop of Manchester stated the case against the farmers 
in plain and forcible terms: "Could a man, at the present 
prices of the necessaries of life, maintain himself and his 
family, he would not say in comfort, but even with a sufficiency 
of food, fuel and clothing, to enable him to put his whole 
strength into his work, on a smaller income than fifteen or 
sixteen shillings a week ? If the farmers said they could not 
afford to pay this rate of wages with their present rentals, 
and could prove this statement, then rents must comedown; 
an unpleasant thing to contemplate, for those who would 
spend the rent of a three hundred acre farm on a single ball, 
or upon a pair of high-stepping carriage-horses. But, never- 
theless, one of these things is inevitable." 

The farmers succeeded for the time in their resistance to 
the demands of the laborers. They and their families per- 
formed the manual labor on their farms, which had hitherto 
been carried on by hired workmen. The results, however, 
of the labor movement in the agricultural class have been 
considerable. The laborers were defeated in their pitched 
battle with the farmers; but they subsequently obtained 
considerable advances in all those districts where the lowest 
wasfes had hitherto been given. 



THE ENGLISH CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEM. 18/ 

Philanthropic men have sought to reconcile the apparently- 
hopeless conflict between capital and labor, by the introduc- 
tion of the so-called cooperative system. It will be sufficient 
to point out where the principle has been adopted with 
success, and where it has been marked by failure. It has 
been a success, where the business to be done was easy to 
manage. At the cooperative retail stores, great reductions 
of price and improvements of quality have been secured to 
the consumers. Cooperation has been a failure in its appli- 
cation to productive industry. In a large factory, or mine, 
or foundry, where the labors of hundreds or thousands of 
men must be combined, in order to carry out extensive and 
complicated operations, discipline must be maintained, and 
the reasonableness of the orders given must be accepted with- 
out debate by those engaged in subordinate capacities. The 
government of a factory, like the command of a regiment, 
must be an autocracy. Hence it is that the principle of asso- 
ciated effort has been found inapplicable to productive 
industry. 

There is another reason why cooperative manufacture has 
been a failure. Capital is required for such undertakings. 
Competition has reduced the profits of manufacturers so con- 
siderably, that an establishment, unprovided with the newest 
and most costly machinery, must show an adverse balance. 
Unfortunately, the savings of the working classes are not 
sufficient to enable them to provide the capital necessary for 
business on a large scale. It would be unfair to the intelli- 
gent and industrious working people of England, to ignore 
the many laudable efforts they have made to raise their 
material and their social condition. The benefit societies, 
the post-office savings bank, in which the savings of the poor 
are accumulated at the rate of a million and a half a year, 
the building societies, and the cooperative associations, 
attest the prudence and the thrift of multitudes, who can 
not save money without self-denial. On the other hand, the 
consumption of spirits and beer in the United Kingdom 
shows that the surplus earnings of prosperous times are 



1 88 . THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

largely consumed in pernicious indulgence. The consump- 
tion of British spirits increased from twenty-four million gal- 
lons in 1 87 1, to thirty million one hundred thousand gallons 
in 1874, while the number of bushels of malt consumed was 
increased in the same period from fifty-four millions to sixty- 
two millions. It has been computed that one hundred million 
pounds a year are annually expended in the United Kingdom 
in drink. If any appreciable proportion of this vast and 
deplorable outlay were devoted to industrial investment, the 
working classes might become more independent than they 
are of the aid of the capitalist. 

There has been tried in England a more practicable form 
of cooperation, according to the best thought on the subject 
in that country. For, whether cooperation will work in the 
United States or not, it does not seem to have met with 
much success in England. The new experiment in England 
is that of paying by results. This system is that according 
to which work is done by the piece, and a per cent .on all 
work done in a week, over a certain amount, goes to the 
laborer. It has been warmly advocated by the most gener- 
ous friends of the working classes. The best workmen are 
usually found where piece-work is the established practice. 

Of the two hundred and forty million pounds a year of 
English exports, fully ninety per cent were made by the 
piece. Of textile manufacture, England exported, in 1874, 
one hundred and twenty million pounds' worth, and these 
had all been paid by the piece. So it was with iron and 
steel, to the extent of thirty-one million pounds; and also 
with coal, cutlery, haberdashery, and other small articles, all 
of which, so far as practicable, were produced under the 
piece-work system. There is more piece-work done in 
England than in any other country in the world ; and the 
more it is extended the better for the workmen, whether 
they like it or not. 

The comparative efficiency of the English and the foreign 
workman has been much discussed in the present hard times, 
as it always is when trade is depressed. The truth is that 



THE OUTLOOK FOR ENGLAND. 1 89 

there is little difference between the amount of work per- 
formed for a given sum of money in any of the manufactur- 
ing countries of Europe. The English workmen became idle 
when their wages were raised, and their hours of labor cur- 
tailed ; but they have skill and physical power, and common 
sense. They are not likely to allow themselves to be beaten 
in a fair and open competition. The best evidence of the 
excellence of the British workmen, is afforded by the high 
tariffs, which, in many countries, where the wages are lower, 
and the hours of labor longer than in England, it is thought 
necessary to impose, in order to give effectual protection to 
native industry. If there were no protective duties, English 
iron-work would be found in use in France, in Russia, and 
in the United States, whence now it is only excluded by 
prohibitive imports. 

The present labor depression is not confined to England. 
In Germany there has been over-production. Wages have 
risen as rapidly as in England. Good workmen have become 
careless ; and the general standard of diligence and workman- 
ship has declined. In Belgium, more than half the blast 
furnaces are standing idle. 

The present outlook for England is that there is to be 
temporary relief at least. A great deal depends upon how 
the immense surplus capital will be used ; a great deal more 
on what measures the wealthier class will take for the social, 
intellectual and moral elevation of the working people. More 
than all else will depend on the energy, faith and skill of man- 
agement upon the part of the laborers for themselves and their 
interests. The present face of the labor question in England 
reflects one lesson clearer than all others : there can exist no 
natural friction between labor and capital, and therefore 
between the laborer and the capitalist, without loss and dis- 
tress to both sides. That mutual interests demand harmony, 
is the sad, yet important truth, taught by the labor problem 
of England. 

It is idle to find fault with trades-unions. , When men 
came to be- employed together in numbers so vast, it was 



190 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

natural that they should combine to promote their mutual 
interests. It is better to recognize these organizations, and 
to make use of the facilities they afford for negotiation and 
agreement between employers and their work-people. 

Even in the most prosperous times, there are multitudes 
who have to fight a hard battle in the daily struggle for life. 
Side by side with the colossal fortunes accumulated in suc- 
cessful enterprise, it is sad to see so many human beings 
without sufficient food or raiment. The affluent may strive 
to satisfy the conscientious scruples of their position by 
lavish doles to the poor. But this is not enough. Indis- 
criminate alms create more misery than they relieve, and 
their distribution requires an amount of careful inquiry that 
is not commonly bestowed. To the rich, it is easier to be 
lavish of their money than to devote their time to the prac- 
tical work of charity. The poor, however, have a claim to 
both ; and a full and generous recognition of that claim can 
alone dispel the bitterness and the envy, which an ostenta- 
tious display of wealth cannot fail to excite. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LABOR QUESTION IN GERMANY. 

THE German laborer is in distress, discontented, and 
ready to do violence for relief. The German is over- 
governed. The desire for good government, and the implicit 
faith which the common citizen places in his rulers, render 
possible an abnormally large number of officials, while the 
over-watchful care which the latter place on all the ordinary 
affairs of life, and the cumbrous and complicated forms reg- 
ulating even the simplest official business, have created a 
large number of small officials for which there is no need. 

Germany now supports a standing army of four hundred 
thousand men, while her military improvements and con- 
structions have for years been on an immense scale. In both 
agricultural and manufacturing industry Germany is at a 
great disadvantage. The soil is generally poor. The aver- 
age wheat yield for ten years has been about fifteen bushels. 
In England it has been about thirty bushels. The German 
implements are clumsy, and there is a great lack of labor- 
saving machinery. In manufacturing, Germany is at the 
same disadvantage. The division of labor has proceeded 
there but slightly; the use of machinery is backward, old- 
fashioned conservatism is still powerful in industry, and the 
productions of the laborer are correspondingly small. 

Prussia is the most distressed state of Germany. Among 
ninety six per cent of the population there is not one person 
who has an income of over one hundred and fifty dollars. 
Six hundred dollars is a very large income. The peasants 
are ill-fed, hard-worked, and their hovels, many of them 
with only one window, some lacking even one, are hardly fit 
for the fowls which share them with the family. There are 
many huts containing only one room, with damp earth as a 

191 



192 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

floor, and not more than fifteen feet square, where two 
families dwell; where sons bring their wives; where young 
and old of both sexes are thrown together; where modesty 
can furnish no barrier to vice, and fine feelings, if any could 
arise, are crushed by hard surroundings. 

The condition of the independent laborer is worse still 
than that of the serfs. Those who receive their entire pay 
in money, get less in proportion than those who, besides a 
small pay, have a hut furnished them. The independent 
laborers work for daily wages, which in summer vary from 
twenty-six cents to thirty-six cents for men, and eighteen 
cents to twenty-five cents for women. From this scanty pay 
they must save enough to live through the winter, when 
there is seld.om an opportunity to work. It is now impos- 
sible for a common German laborer to support a family by 
working ten or twelve hours a day. All must labor — father, 
mother and children. Mere unskilled labor varies from 
twenty-five to sixty-two cents per day, with the average 
about forty-three cents. In Leipzig, at present, the city 
employs men on a new canal, who, coming from the country, 
work twelve to fourteen hours per day, walk back often five 
to ten miles, and receive thirty-seven cents. At Leipzig 
they pay masons five cents per hour; wool-combers, six 
cents per hour; spinners, best, four dollars and twenty-five 
cents a week, and book printers, three dollars and ninety- 
four cents. But for the lowest forms of labor, or mere 
brute force, the wages are much smaller. 

Those habits of docility and subordination which nature 
and years of iron rule have instilled into the German laborer, 
having followed him in his demands from his employers, 
have brought it about that the part of wages which is gov- 
erned more by custom and by the personal influence of man 
with man than by economic laws, has been especially large 
in Germany, and it has operated against the lowest forms of 
labor. Again, on account of the poverty of the lower classes 
not permitting them to remain long without employment, 
they are placed at the mercy of the capitalist. All these 



THE CAUSE OF SOCIALISM. 



193 



causes, combined with the fact that the backward state of 
German growth has not matured those finer quahties of 
leniency toward the weaker element in society, have caused 
the wages of unskilled labor to hover at the very edge of the 
necessities of existence. 

The present embarrassed condition of industry and trade 
adds to the laborer's hardships. Thousands are now wan- 
dering in vain in search of employment, from the confines of 
Russia to France. This last and heavy straw it is which 
has broken the German laborer's patience. He sees others 
in prosperity while he is in misery. His long-suffering is at 
last worn out, and he clamors for a change, for assistance 
against his hard surroundings, for relief from giving two or 
three of his best years to military service, for relief from 
taxation, for anything that will lighten his burdens. 

For relief he has gone to socialism, the worst economic 
principle to which he could resort, and one from which 
labor has never received any good. The German laborer 
felt that he was wronged of his proper wages, and socialism 
demanded state help for labor. He was told that every man 
has a right to the necessaries of life ; that while one single 
person suffers, no one has a right to luxuries. He was told 
that property once belonged to the community; that private 
possessions in land were first caused by robbery of individuals 
from society ; that labor being the only justification of prop- 
erty, land belongs to no one person, but to all; that the 
laborer in every generation is coming more completely into 
the power of the capitalist ; that the boasted policy of libe- 
ralism has only increased the evils ; that all else but social- 
ism has been fairly tried, and in socialism alone is relief. 

Socialism in Germany among the laboring classes is sim- 
ply the present and half-accidental form which the complaint 
against hardship and the resistance to over-government has 
assumed. This socialism teaches that labor is the source of 
all wealth and culture; and as general beneficial labor is 
possible only through society, to society belong the com- 
bined products of all labor ; that is, to all its members, with 
13 



194 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the general duty of work, with equal rights, and according 
to the reasonable needs of each. The cause of the misery 
and slavery of the laborer is the monopoly of the means of 
labor by the capital classes. The destruction of this mon- 
opoly of the system of wages, of profit in every form, and of 
all social and political inequality is the ultimate aim of 
socialism. The extreme wing demands that the state shall 
become the owner of all land, and that private property in 
land shall not exist. 

In German socialism capital has no right and should have 
no profits. Wages are to be regulated by state officials, and 
the whole industry and trade of the country are to be under 
the control of the government. This doctrine carried into 
effect would constitute a kind of a state communism, which 
would be a hundred fold worse than the people's commune of 
France, as power in the hands of a few is always more tyran- 
nical than when in the hands of many. If this solution of the 
labor trouble in Germany should be attempted, and if the 
attempt should be successful, the whole industry of that coun- 
try is bound to fall into a wreck which will bury both rich and 
poor. For it is not possible to see how a board of officials 
can govern the infinite ramifications of industry and trade. 
There is no man, or number of men, existing who can fully 
comprehend the combined conditions of commerce in a city 
like London so as to guide its massive and intricate move- 
ments to advantage. No government has ever attempted 
one hundredth of that contemplated by socialism, and yet we 
know that all attempts at interference with industry have 
hitherto been disastrous. Even on such questions as free 
trade there have been differences of opinion among the 
ablest men. What, then, can a government do when it 
takes on its shoulders the entire control of a country's indus- 
try and trade? 

Again, it is a well-established fact that government works 
are carried on more expensively than private works. The 
former are noted for being slow, cumbrous and lacking in 
progress, because they are outside of the sphere of com- 



THE TRUE SPIRIT OF PROGRESS. 195 

petition. The removal of individual enterprise will take 
away many a spur to progress, and mankind, not made by 
nature to rise with rapidity, will proceed still more slowly. 
The control of industry and trade by the state can be 
effected only by restrictions on individual activity, and this 
must decrease production. 

Progress is the progress of individuals, and that comes 
only from experience, the only teacher, the only improver of 
man's character ; and experience should be left as free and 
as wide as possible. And nowhere more so than in the field 
of labor ; this is the lesson political economy points out in 
the labor question in Germany. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE LABOR QUESTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 

IT is believed that this question, as a problem of industrial 
science, is more easy to adjust in this country then it 
will be in England. There are several things favoring this 
view. 

The first reason is that the spirit of freedom is in Ameri- 
can industry, as it is in all other distinctive American insti- 
tutions. And liberty is as important to the right adjustment 
of labor, as it is to the highest manhood. The superiority of 
free labor has been believed by nearly all economists, as it 
has been taught by all sound philosophy. The labor of slaves 
is forever inferior, and mostly unprofitable. From the time 
when the Israelites had to make bricks for the Egyptians, 
until the Negro had to pick cotton for the southern planter, 
servile fear has been the only motive of slave labor. It lacks 
the great stimulating motive of all modern industrial power 
and progress. The labor of the races who have been slaves, 
is not one half what it would have been under the spur of 
liberty. Rome fell because she had not enough free laborers 
to maintain the dignity of labor. The great defect of 
Grecian civilization was that the useful arts were resigned to 
slaves. Whatever holds men back from the full freedom of 
their laboring powers is destructive of the very genius and 
efficiency of labor. No people are more delicate in this prin- 
ciple than the Americans. It is felt here that labor is dig- 
nifie.d by liberty, and it is honorable because it is free. The 
fruit of labor is in the free reward of the laborer. No English 
restrictive legislation can put a bar on American labor. 

Another advantage which the labor question has in this 
country, for its favorable settlement, is, that men are better 
paid for their work. There is a greater spirit of willingness 

196 



PRE-EMINENCE OF OUR LABOR SYSTEM. 1 97 

to reward labor. Capital has been supreme so long in 
England that it is forgotten that it is the child of toil, and 
labor is degraded. In the United States, labor claims 
reward, and it gets it. Most laborers in the better class of 
industries are paid according to merit, and not merely on 
time. The best observation throughout the world shows the 
policy of piece-wages, rather than time-wages. The laborer 
who works by the piece is more apt to produce a better and 
quicker article than the laborer who is merely paid for his 
time. A German scholar in this field, affirms that the 
system of paying by the piece in lower Silesia increased the 
daily earnings of workmen by one third, one half, and even 
more. Another observer says that in railroad work labor is 
worth one third more if paid for by piece, then by time. 
The closer the sympathy between labor and reward, the more 
smoothly labor will operate, and the less danger there is of 
friction between labor and capital. 

Close on to this is a still stronger element for good in 
American labor. Every laborer is mostly concerned in what 
is of most benefit to him. American laborers are more 
interested in their labor than are those of England. This is 
shown by the well-known fact that by far the greater num- 
ber of industrial inventions have come from the American 
laborer, while the English laborer has done but little in 
invention. Especially in American agricultural labor is it the 
case that the laborer is interested in his labor. Arthur 
Young well says : " Give a man the secure possession of a 
bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden." In agricult- 
ural life in the United States every laborer, nearly, expects 
to be the owner of land. 

The land is mostly very cheap ; it consequently yields of 
itself no rent, and is tilled almost exclusively by the proprie- 
tors. The class of farmers, intermediate between that of 
proprietor and laborer, has developed itself but rarely ; it is 
also of no advantage, especially in the free states, to acquire 
and cultivate great tracts of land, except for the purpose of 
soon selling them again. The farmer who is interested in 



198 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

his own labor, because its returns belong to himself, will be 
a warm defender of labor as a producer of wealth ; so that in 
such a person labor and capital meet in harmony. The labor 
question is here, with this class, already adjusted. 

Adam Smith, the English economist said: ''The liberal 
reward of labor, as it encourages the propagation, so it 
increases the industry of the common people. The wages of 
labor are the encouragement of industry, which, like every 
other human quality, improves in proportion to the encour- 
agement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the 
bodily strength of the laborer, and the comfortable hope of 
bettering his condition, and of ending his days, perhaps, in 
ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the 
utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always 
find the workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious, 
than where they are low ; in England, for example, than in 
Scotland ; in the neighborhood of great towns, than in 
remote country places." 

Diversified industries will always aid the labor question to 
an easy solution, as they prevent any one destined field of 
labor from becoming crowded. Where labor must largely 
confine itself to a few industries, production is too rapid for 
consumption, and wages are too low for a life of comfort; 
which condition is sure to aggravate the labor question and 
make its adjustment difificult. That nation or people is 
happiest which has the most widely diversified industries; 
because its members will be led inevitably to the exercise of 
great and varied ingenuity and enterprise, while at the same 
time capital, the fruit and reward of labor, will be more 
equally distributed among the population than in a country 
where but a few industries are pursued. 

Take, for instance, a region devoted to grazing, or to the 
cultivation of cotton only, and the mass of the people will 
be dull and subordinate, and the wealth will be in few hands. 
In like manner examine a district devoted mainly to the 
production of crude iron, coal, or cotton fabrics, and the 
mass of the people will be subordinate, in poor circum- 



POSSIBLE SOLUTION OF THE LABOR QUESTION. I99 

stances, comparatively ignorant and unenterprising, and not 
ingenious, while the greater part of the wealth of the com- 
munity is concentrated in a few hands. 

But find a district where the people are engaged in a 
multitude of small industries, and wealth is more equally 
divided, comfort is more widely diffused, and the people are 
more enterprising, intelligent, ingenious and independent. 
To contrive a system of law, therefore, whose tendency and 
effect would be to draw large numbers from the smaller 
'industries which they would naturally pursue, and concen- 
trate their labors upon a single pursuit, would be to degrade 
the character of such a population by making it less ingen- 
ious, enterprising and independent than before ; and this the 
more if this single industry should be of a kind which 
required, in the mass of those engaged in it, but little skill 
or thought, and at the same time required that much capital 
should be devoted to it. For, in that case, not only would 
the character of the people deteriorate, but wealth would 
more and more be drawn away from the smaller industries 
and concentrated in the larger, and the mass of the people 
would become in time less prosperous and comfortable. 

American labor has been so organized that all these facts 
are favorably inclined to a prosperous condition of our 
industries. In this respect, the United States will not have 
to overcome some of the great evils of the English system 
before the more vital interests of labor can be considered. 
The industrial interests of the United States form the basis 
of the wealth, and consequently prosperity of the country. 
The laborer is the most important, if not the most conspic- 
uous, character in our national life. His condition, welfare, 
elevation, ought to be of interest to all ; and the highest 
question of the hour for the statesman, reformer and econo- 
mist, is how to promote labor and keep it free and clear 
from all disastrous revolution. 

Shall this republic, the beacon light of humanity, the 
last hope of the toiling millions of the Old World during 
many years of tyranny and oppression, became the prey of 



20O THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

pirates, cliques and rings, and never recover? This new 
Atlantis, surrounded and protected by the vastness of the 
ocean — this wonderful country, with all its inexhaustible 
resources, its majestic mountains and rivers, it railroads and 
telegraphs, its great political institutions, its free press of 
more than four thousand batteries, spreading out the light 
of intelligence and information among more than fifty 
millions of inhabitants ; with its free schools and religious 
freedom, the universality, the intelligence, skill and energy 
of its citizens — shall it remain what it has been, or shall it 
become degenerate and corrupt ? Shall it resist the storms 
of time and the corroding influences of egotism, extrava- 
gance and corruption, or will this present unfortunate condi- 
tion of affairs become permanent, and the close of another 
century look down upon the ruins of a once mighty and 
prosperous nation ? We believe that through the strong 
common sense and patriotism of its people it will stand firm, 
resist and conquer. Republics must have their time of 
development, as monarchies have had theirs; they must pass 
through a series of trials and experiments to find the system 
which harmonizes best with their particular conditions, aims 
and ends, and when moved from the same they must, from 
time to time, by the process of reform or revolution, return 
to the basis upon which they were founded, employing the 
great lever of popular sovereignty to remedy the evils of 
the hour. 

There are some ponderous evils looming up in the Ameri- 
can labor system, which in the near future may result in 
great distress to trade, unless some wise, economic principle 
will take such vigorous hold of them as to steer clear of 
industrial panic. Let us have the courage to look them 
straight in the face. 



CHAPTER X. 

STRIKES. 

THIS is the most dangerous element in the labor question 
of the United States. It is simply the demand labor 
makes upon capital for higher remuneration, accompanied 
with the threat that if it is not granted the work will stop. 
Of course, every workman has a right to make his own terms 
with his employer; and it can make no difference — so far as 
right goes — whether he acts singly, or whether he joins 
a number, great or small, of his fellow-laborers in arranging 
or rearranging these terms. All laws having for their object 
the prevention of such combinations and strikes are, there- 
fore, unjust and oppressive. Every man has an inalienable 
right to seek to better his condition, and the means he uses 
for that end lie within his discretion, saving only, of course, 
that he must keep the peace. As a workman has no defense 
against an oppressive employer, except the threat to leave 
him, it is injustice to deprive him of that. 

His strike may bring loss and inconvenience upon not 
only his employer, but upon the whole community; that 
does not lessen his right to strike, or to combine with others 
to strike. It may bring suffering upon his family ; still his 
right remains. He only exercises the liberty of deciding for 
whom, and on what terms he will work ; and this is a 
supreme right of which he cannot be deprived. But the 
rights he has and uses, he must allow to others; and the 
striker has no right to coerce any other workingman to join 
him. When he does that, he becomes a criminal of a very 
grave kind, for his wrong affects the rights of all working-men. 
If it were granted that a striker might rightfully force another 
workman to join him, he would thereby give up his own 
rights and liberties; for if he may abridge the freedom of 

201 



202 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

another, somebody else, by the same right, may lessen his. 
The striker, therefore, commits the grossest and most absurd 
tyranny when he interferes to force other persons to quit 
work. In our country, strikes usually take place upon a 
great scale. The organization of the trades-unions has 
brought hired laborers into close connection, and enabled 
them to act in large masses for various purposes. Hence we 
have seen, in this country, strikes in which thousands of men 
were united ; and in England, where the trades-unions are 
more powerful and compact organizations than here, it has 
happened that a general strike of the laborers in one industry, 
was supported by those engaged in others, out of a general 
fund of their societies. In all this, the workmen were exer- 
cising only the inalienable right of determining for whom 
and on what terms they would labor; and so long as they did 
not attempt to force unwilling laborers to join them, and did 
not otherwise break the peace, interference with them would 
have been the grossest injustice. 

Nothing can do more lasting harm to labor than strikes. 
They contribute to an ill feeling between laborer and 
employer, which ought not to exist. An industry giving 
employment to ten thousand men is embarrassed by a 
strike. While the workmen are on the strike, they are con- 
suming their savings, and are thus made the poorer; and as 
idleness is a habit creative of evil, they are tempted into 
some bad habits. If they ever succeed, the increased rate of 
wages which they have compelled, will not, probably, for a 
long time to come, restore to them their former savings and 
comforts. Meantime, however, it is probable that other per- 
sons have been drawn into their industry, and thus, by their 
own act, the number of persons seeking their bread by this 
industry has been increased, and in the nature of things, the 
demand for wages is greater, proportioned to the capital 
available for wages, than before ; and either wages will pres- 
ently fall again, or some part of the laborers will be thrown 
out of employment. They are the boomerangs of industry. 

The evil spirit of monopoly is at the bottom of the strikes 



TWO SPECIAL CASES. 203 

in the United States. While the author is at work on this 
article, there is in progress a strike among the telegraph 
operators of the country. There appears to be an operators' 
union, with branches in all the large cities. At precisely 
twelve o'clock on a certain day, the strike begun, and upon 
a given signal, men and women rose from the keys and left 
the rooms ; in some instances, messages were just being sent, 
in others, just being received ; in both cases the instruments 
were deserted. In many central of^ces, hundreds of hands, 
all supposed to be members of the union, deserted the work 
and repaired to their halls to hold meetings. The public 
business and comfort are greatly disturbed. The operators 
are resolute, and the companies are determined. Calls have 
been sent to Europe for men to operate the wires, and per- 
sons in this country, who do not belong to the union, are 
eagerly sought for the same purpose. 

In this instance the companies are pursuing a policy they 
are not willing to accord to their laborers. They have 
resolved to employ no person connected with the union of 
operatives ; but at the same time the trouble has been 
brought about by the action of these same companies com- 
bining to form certain rates of wages, and all the companies 
connected with the agreement are bound to these low rates. 
The operatives have the same right to combine in a union 
to refuse, as a body, these same low wages. The simple his- 
tory of this strike is, that capital is resolved, at the instiga- 
tion of the evil spirit of monopoly, to injure labor; where- 
upon labor using the only tool of which it is possessed, flung 
the insult back by momentarily crippling the power of capi- 
tal. A close examination of the strikes will likely show that 
the oppression of capital, through the tyranny of hard 
employers, has been the cause. 

In the labor war of eight years ago, when Pittsburgh was 
in the hands of a mob, it was an attempt to raise the cry of 
industrial protest against the downward tendency of wages. 
The railroad companies were the agrieving parties in this 
instance. The railroad companies have sometimes acted as 



204 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

powerful and uncontrolled interests are apt to act ; in small 
states such as New Jersey, their political power has been 
overweening, and has been freely exerted ; and they have 
even come to be regarded by alarmists as one of the great 
political dangers of the future. Matters were, of course, not 
mended by the occasional appearance of such pirate kings 
as Fisk. 

The companies combined to reduce wages. And combi- 
nation on one side both suggests and justifies combination 
on the other. An unbalanced power of combination on the 
side of the masters would in fact be injurious not only to the 
interests of the men, but to those of the community at large, 
as any one who takes the pains to work out the economical 
problem will admit. The men had a right, by united action, 
to resist the new rate of payment which the companies were 
endeavoring, by united action, to enforce. But they went 
beyond the bounds of right — they placed themselves in 
opposition to economical law and to the interests of the 
community — when they proceeded to prevent other work- 
men from taking the employment which they had them- 
selves declined ; still more when they proceeded to stop the 
trains, to take forcible possession of the stations and other 
property of the companies, and to ofTer armed resistance to 
the representatives of the law. 

The destruction of life was heavy in this strike, while the 
destruction of property reached twenty-five million dollars. 
And the first cause of this double crime must be laid at the 
charge of the railroad companies, who distressed the laborers 
by too great reduction of wages. The other forces of the strike 
were light. In the United States the industrial conflict is not 
so much aggravated as it is in some other countries by social 
antagonism between the classes. The distinction between 
wealth and poverty of course cannot fail to exist, and to be 
sometimes a source of bitterness ; but the ascent of the 
employed into the employing class is so frequent, and so 
many of those who are at the top began with their feet on 



ABSENCE OF COMMUNISTIC ELEMENTS. 205 

the lowest round of the industrial ladder, that a very sharp 
line of social division is hardly possible. 

For the communistic elements of the riot, not American 
institutions, but the maladies of European society and the 
shortcomings of European governments, are responsible. 
Cummunism is not a native product of the United States, 
nor, when brought hither from the Old World, has it 
ever taken deep root. The attempt of the international 
commune society to extend its operations to America proved 
a total failure. Considering the entire absence of repression 
there can be no more conclusive proof of the general sound- 
ness of American society. 

These ever-reappearing strikes give evidence of a disturb- 
ance between labor and capital. Their history also teaches 
that the citizens of the United States regard them as 
unwise methods for the redress of wrong, and that they can 
only aggravate the trouble instead of soothing it. The feel- 
ing of the people is strong against all violation. A shoe- 
makers* union in Massachusetts was baffled some time ago, 
in an attempt to extort exorbitant wages, by the spirit of 
the people, who supported the employers in breaking down 
the monopoly of the strikers by the introduction of Chinese. 
A printers' strike at Boston, which threatened to suspend 
the publication of the newspapers, was in the same way 
defeated by assistance lent in all quarters to the pubHshers, 
even a judge, it was said, bearing a hand in setting type. 

When wages are permanently too low in any well-estab- 
lished industry, that means that too many persons are seek- 
ing to share in the gross returns of that industry. The 
remedy lies in either increasing the demand for the goods, 
which means widening the market for them, which can be 
done only by an extension of commerce, when more capital 
could be profitably invested in the industry, or in decreas- 
ing the number of persons desiring employment in it. Now 
a strike certainly does not widen the market for goods ; it 
does not extend commerce, which is the only way to perma- 
nently increase demand ; and, by alarming capital, is far 



2o6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

more likely to decrease than to increase the proportion used 
in the given industry ; and by stopping work it checks the 
accumulation of that which is already invested. But it does 
not decrease the amount of labor offering — for the strikers 
simply stand idle, and mean to reenter the same industry 
as soon as the contest between them and their employers 
is decided: as soon, that is to say, as one side or the other 
has suffered all the loss it can bear. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE MORAL FEATURE OF THE LABOR QUESTION. 

POLITICAL economy gives recognition to the fact that 
the condition of the mind and heart of a people has an 
effect upon the industry of that people. The labor problem 
in the United States cannot be solved without considering 
the moral elevation of the laborer. Here industrial science 
and moral philosophy meet to measure a common ground. 
The organization of laborers into combinations and unions 
will not likely effect much for the elevation of labor, as long 
as they have in view provision for merely temporary relief. 
These generally act on the principle that to right themselves 
they must wrong others. It is the selfish feeling that there 
are too many laborers to do the work of the world. But 
there are no surplus men in the world ; when any one 
appears to be so, he is only in the wrong place. Enable him 
to go elsewhere, and teach him that he shall, if need be, do 
something else, and he is no longer surplus, but highly neces- 
sary to civilization. More than one half of our planet still 
lies waste and useless, and suffers for lack of strong arms and 
stout hearts to redeem it. 

Here is one of the most dangerous blunders of labor- 
unions. They teach, if not directly, yet by the spirit of their 
doctrines, that men have a vested right in their employments : 
that a mason has a right to remain a mason, and that society 
owes him a living by that trade. No man has the least right 
to subsistence as merely a mason, a shoemaker, a lawyer, 
a clergyman, a tailor, a bricklayer, or a miner. If his labor 
as a mason is surplus, if no more masons are wanted when 
he comes along with his trowel, it is his duty, not to conspire 
against society with absurd regulations about apprentices 

207 



2o8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

and hours of labor, but to go at sovictJiing else. A man who 
regards himself as only a shoemaker, a mason, a tailor, a 
lawyer, a physician, or a clerk, becomes thereby a contempt- 
ible object. He loses his independence, and makes himself 
the sport of circumstances. In our days, when new inven- 
tions continually change the methods of labor, it is especially 
hazardous for men to bind themselves for life to a single 
employment ; and those only can hope to benefit both them- 
selves and their fellow-laborers who, when they find their 
occupation overcrowded, have courage and independence 
enough to seek a new calling, and if possible a new field of 
labor. 

What the laborer needs is mental and moral elevation. 
Education has, in all civilized countries, given to the great 
class of laborers for wages the taste and desire for a greater 
amount of comfort than contented them in other days. 
Labor unions should use their means to seek out new fields 
of labor; to teach their members energetically that though 
to-day they may be shoemakers, they can, if need be, achieve 
success as shepherds, gold miners, farmers ; that dependence 
is hateful ; that independence is possible to all who have 
health and will. 

The laborer is not a mere laborer, nor was he made c!iiefly 
to minister to the wants of an industry. Every man ought 
to seek his own elevation. A mind, in which are sown the 
seeds of wisdom, disinterestedness, firmness of purpose, and 
piety, is worth more than all the outward material interests 
of a world. The common notion has been, that the mass of 
the people need no other culture than is necessary to fit 
them for their various trades ; and, though this error is pass- 
ing away, it is far from being exploded. But the ground of 
a man's culture lies in his nature, not in his calling. His 
powers are to be unfolded on account of their inherent 
dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated, 
because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nails 
or pins. A trade is plainly not the great end of his being, 
for his mind cannot be shut up in it ; his force of thought 



VALUE OF SELF-HELPS. 20g 

cannot be exhausted on it. He has faculties to which it 
gives no action, and deep wants it cannot answer. How 
often, when the arms are mechanically plying a trade, does 
the mind, lost in reverie or day-dreams, escape to the ends 
of the earth ! Undoubtedly a man is to perfect himself in 
his trade, for by it he is to earn his bread and to serve the 
community. But bread or subsistence is not his highest 
good ; for, if it were, his lot would be ha'rder than that of the 
inferior animals, for whom nature spreads a table and weaves 
a wardrobe, without a care of their own. 

There are some moral reflections by which a laborer may 
by self-helps elevate his condition by elevating himself. A 
first consideration is the ambition, cherished at all times, that 
a cabin home is better than a mansion tenement. Many a 
man has been helped to elevation above his daily thoughts 
of toil by living in a rude hut, built with his own hands, 
shaded and fragrant with the vine and blossom of the 
morning-glory, planted by his wife. The science of beauty 
will help the science of economics. A clean, comfortable 
dwelling, with wholesome meals, is no small aid to intellectual 
and moral progress. A man living in a damp cellar, or a 
garret open to rain and snow, breathing the foul air of a 
filthy room, and striving, without success, to appease hunger 
on scanty or unsavory food, is in danger of abandoning him- 
self to a desperate, selfish recklessness. 

Labor is a means of justice. For instance, in almost all 
labor a man exchanges his strength for an equivalent in the 
form of wages, purchase money, or some other product. In 
other words, labor is a system of contracts, bargains, impos- 
ing mutual obligations. Now the man who, in working, no 
matter in what way, strives perpetually to fulfill his obliga- 
tions thoroughly, to do his whole work faithfully, to 'be 
honest, not because honesty is the best poHcy, but for the 
sake of justice, and that he may render to every man his 
due ; such a laborer is continually building up in himself one 
of the greatest principles of morality and religion. Every 
blow on the anvil, on the earth, or whatever material he 
14 



2IO THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

works upon, contributes something to the perfection of his 
nature. 

Nor is this all. Labor is a school of benevolence as well 
as justice. A man, to support himself, must serve others. 
He must do or produce something for their comfort or 
gratification. This is one of the beautiful ordinations of 
Providence, that, to get a living, a man must be useful. 
Now this usefulness ought to be an end in his labor as truly 
as to earn his living. He ought to think of the benefit of 
those he works for, as well as of his own ; and in so doing, 
in desiring amidst his sweat and toil to serve others as well 
as himself, he is exercising and growing in benevolence as 
truly as if he were distributing bounty with a large hand to 
the poor. Such a motive hallows and dignifies the com- 
monest pursuit. It is strange that laboring men do not 
think more of the vast usefulness of their toils, and take a 
benevolent pleasure in them on this account. 

The world can never do without the dignity and honor 
of human labor. Such a world would make a contemptible 
race. Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to that 
striving of the will, that conflict with difficulty, which we 
call effort. Easy, pleasant work does not make robust 
minds, does not give men a consciousness of their powers, 
does not train them to endurance, to perseverance, to steady 
force of will, that force without which all other acquisitions 
avail nothing. Manual labor is a school in which men are 
placed to get energy of purpose and character — a vastly 
more important endowment than all the learning of all other 
schools. They are placed, indeed, under hard masters, phys- 
ical sufferings and wants, the power of fearful elements, 
and the vicissitudes of all human things; but these stern 
teachers do a work which no compassionate, indulgent friend 
could do for us, and true wisdom will bless Providence for 
their sharp ministry. 

The laboring class are depressed by obstacles which 
prevent any great elevation until they are removed, and as a 
rule, they are to be removed by the laborers themselves. 



INTEMPERANCE AND PAUPERISM. 211 

How much of this depression is to be traced to intemperance? 
What a great amount of time and strength and money 
might multitudes gain for self-improvement by a strict 
sobriety! That cheap remedy, pure water, would cure the 
chief evils in very many families of the ignorant and poor. 
Were the sums which are still lavished on ardent spirits 
appropriated wisely to the elevation of the people, what a 
new world we should live in ! Intemperance not only wastes 
the earnings, but the health and the minds of men. How 
many, were they to exchange what they call moderate drink- 
ing for water, would be surprised to learn that they had 
been living under a cloud in half stupefaction, and would 
become conscious of an intellectual energy of which they 
had not before dreamed ? Their labors would exhaust them 
less, and less labor would be needed for their support ; and 
thus their inability to cultivate their high nature would in a 
great measure be removed. The working class, above all 
men, have an interest in the cause of temperance, and they 
ought to look on the individual who lives by scattering the 
means and excitements of drunkenness not only as the 
general enemy of his race, but as their own worst foe. 

In the next place, how much of the depression of laborers 
may be traced to the want of a strict economy ! The pros- 
perity of this country has produced a wastefulness that has 
extended to the laboring multitude. A man here turns 
with scorn from fare that in many countries would be 
termed luxurious. It is, indeed, important that the standard 
of living in all classes should be high : that is, it should 
include the comforts of life, the means of neatness and 
order in our dwellings, and such supplies of our wants as are 
fitted to secure vigorous health. But how many waste their 
earnings on indulgences which may be spared, and thus have 
no resource for a dark day, and are always trembling on the 
brink of pauperism ! Needless expenses keep many too 
poor for self-improvement. And here let me say, that 
expensive habits among the more prosperous laborers often 
interfere with the mental culture of themselves and their 



212 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

families. How many among them sacrifice improvement to 
appetite ! How many sacrifice it to the love of show, to the 
desire of outstripping others, and to habits of expense which 
grow out of this insatiable passion ! In a country so thriv- 
ing and luxurious as ours, the laborer is in danger of con- 
tracting artificial wants and diseased tastes ; and to gratify 
these, he gives himself wholly to accumulation, and sells his 
mind for gain. Our unparalleled prosperity has not been an 
unmixed good. It has inflamed cupidity, has diseased the 
imagination with dreams of boundless success, and plunged 
a vast multitude into excessive toils, feverish competitions, 
and exhausting cares. A laborer, having secured a neat 
home and a wholesome table, should ask nothing more for 
the senses, but should consecrate his leisure, and what may 
be spared of his earnings, to the culture of himself and 
his family, to the best books, to the best teaching, to pleas- 
ant and profitable intercourse, to sympathy and the offices of 
humanity, and to the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature 
and art. Unhappily, the laborer, if prosperous, is anxious 
to ape the rich man, instead of trying to rise above him, as 
he often may, by noble acquisitions. The young, in particu- 
lar the apprentice and the female domestic, catch a taste for 
fashion, and on this altar sacrifice too often their upright- 
ness, and almost always the spirit of improvement, dooming 
themselves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain show. 
Cannot the laborer, whose condition calls him so loudly to 
simplicity of taste and habits, take his stand against that 
love of dress which dissipates and corrupts so many minds 
among the opulent? Cannot the laboring class refuse to 
measure men by outward success, and pour utter scorn on 
all pretensions founded on outward show or condition ? 

Another cause for the depression often found among 
laborers is that of ignorance and carelessness of health. 
Health is the working man's fortune, and he ought to watch 
over it more than the capitalist over his largest investments. 
Health lightens the efforts of body and mind. It enables a 



NEED OF INTELLIGENT AND MORAL EDUCATION. 213 

man to crowd much work into a narrow compass. Without 
it, Httle can be earned, and that httle by slow, exhausting toil. 

To throw off this depression, there is nothing a laborer 
needs so much as recognition as a man, and a chance for his 
family. With ambition, and the feeling of a common man- 
hood, the laborer w^ho has this recognition ought to set 
about to elevate himself. And he ought to remember that 
his own elevation will give him an increased respect from the 
employer; give him more independence, and better qualify 
him for a change of labor in a possible hour of distress. 

Among the laborers of the United States there ought to 
be a more general move for intellectual and moral education. 
The diminution of a country's wealth, occasioned by general 
attention to intellectual and moral culture, would be followed 
by very different effects from those which would attend an 
equal diminution brought about by sloth, intemperance, and 
ignorance. There would indeed be less production in such 
a country, but the character and spirit of the people would 
effect a much more equal distribution of what would be pro- 
duced ; and the happiness of a community depends vastly 
more on the distribution than on the amount of its wealth. 

It is a teaching of political economy as well as of moral 
philosophy that the law of mutual interest is as unfailing 
and fixed as the law of gravitation. Whatever incident in 
the trade of a' country effects either labor or capital is bound 
to effect the other. Whatever brings loss in capital will 
bring distress in labor. If anything, as a general disease 
among workmen, brings suffering upon laborers, the employ- 
ers will sustain a loss. There is a law of organic sympathy 
here that makes the interest of one party the interest of the 
other. Whatever one may do to injure the other, will react 
upon the first party. While laborers are clamoring for a 
constant increase of wages in this country, they should not 
forget that high wages ^means high products. Just as they 
are paid high wages for their work, they will have to pay 
high in return for the work of other laborers, whose products 
they may need. If it cost twice as much money to produce 



214 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

a barrel of flour to-day as it did yesterday, it will double in 
price. Every article of produce, every garment that we buy 
for ourselves or our children, will have added to its price 
exactly what has been added to the cost of its production or 
manufacture ; and when this excess has been added to the 
excess of rent, the laborer will find himself at the end of his 
first year no whit benefited by what seemed to hold the 
promise of a fortune. These conclusions are unavoidable to 
any one who will observe closely. 

Now there is beyond this direct result of a doubling of 
the price of labor an indirect effect upon the price of real 
estate, which greatly enhances the trouble of the laborer. 
The destruction of various branches of industry, and the 
rendering of other branches either pecarious or insufficient 
in their profits, would inevitably concentrate capital, so far 
as possible, upon real estate. Idle, or poorly-employed, 
capital is always seeking for an investment ; and if banking 
and manufacturing and trade become unprofitable, through 
a disturbance of just relations between labor and capital, the 
man who has money puts it into real estate. Under this 
stimulus real estate rises at once. If the price of labor were 
doubled, the advance in rents from this cause alone would 
not only be appreciable but decidedly onerous. The inevit- 
able tendency of every strike is to drive capital out of manu- 
facturing into real estate, to raise the price of real estate, 
and to raise the laborer's rent. This is always the sure 
tendency of the measure of laborers to secure by forced 
means a high price for their labor. There is, when trade is 
well balanced, a fair price for a day's labor which capital can 
afford to pay, and this is the highest price which labor can 
afford to receive. Beyond this all is injustice, and both sides 
will suffer loss by venturing. The high wages which labor 
may by extreme threats force capital to pay it, will prove a 
curse to the hand that receives it. 

It is suicidal for labor to conduct a crusade against cap- 
ital. A man has a right to get rich. There is not a laborer 
in the country who is not personally interested in the 



THE PROVISION OF NATURE. 21 5 

universal recognition of this right. The desire for wealth is 
a legitimate spur to endeavor, a good motive to the exercise 
of wholesome economy, and a worthy incentive to honest 
and honorable work. It is not the highest motive of life, 
but there is nothing wrong or unworthy in it so long as it is 
held in subordination to personal integrity and neighborly 
good will. There always will be rich men, and there always 
ought to be rich men. There must be accumulations and 
combinations of capital, else there v/ill be no fields of labor 
and enterprise into which, for the winning of hvehhood and 
wealth, the new generations may enter. We may go farther 
and say that there always will be, and always ought to be, 
laborers. Men are born into the world who are better 
adapted to labor with the hands than with the head ; better 
adapted to production than trade ; better adapted to execu- 
tion than management, and, being the order of nature, it is 
wise. The world could not move were the facts different. 
By the capital and the business capacity of one man, whole 
neighborhoods and towns made up of laborers thrive and 
rear their families ; and the relations between the head and 
the hands of such towns and neighborhoods seem, and 
doubtless are, perfectly natural and perfectly healthful. 

Capital has something to complain of as well as labor in 
the matter of service and wages. It is as difficult to get a 
days work done by skillful and conscientious hands as it is 
to get a fair reward for such work ; and so long as this is 
true, it becomes labor to be somewhat modest and careful in 
its demands. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PAID AND CO-OPERATIVE LABOR. 

BY presenting two pen pictures we can see two sides of 
the American labor question. It is a problem yet 
unsolved whether cooperative labor will work in the United 
States. It is equally an unsolved problem in political 
economy how the low paid labor can be better rewarded. 
Until industrial science has given a solution to each of these 
questions, facts may be stated just as they are, and be 
allowed to teach their own lessons. 

Here is a pen picture of low paid labor: A certain valley 
is one of the seats of the cotton manufacturing industry of 
this country. Two streams afford ample water power for 
many factories. Near to one another on both streams are 
the villages, each having one or more cotton mills, or other 
manufacturing establishments. There are a score of fac- 
tories, and the whole population is over ten thousand. The 
people are French, Irish, German, Welsh, English and 
Americans. These elements prevent social manners and 
customs, as also any united action for the purpose of pro- 
ducing a strike. The wages are considered good at one 
dollar a day. Spinners get about this much. Weavers get 
still less. For a piece of cloth over fifty yards in length they 
receive twenty-three cents, and about two days are required 
to weave such a piece on one loom. The number of looms 
run by individuals is four, five or six. In mills where print 
cloths are woven more looms are run, but there the rate per 
cut is much less, and the weekly earnings amount to about 
the same. In these mills none of the workers who are paid 
by the day, except the overseers and their assistants, receive 
more than five dollars per week. The labor time is eleven 
hours a day. 

216 



NO MONEY RECOMPENSE. 21/ 

House rent is cheap ; a good commodious tenement can 
be hired at the rate of fifty dollars a year and less. In 
nearly all the villages the owners of the mills have tenement 
houses for their operatives, which they let to them at a low 
rate. Some of the operatives have houses of their own, but 
they are very few compared to the population. 

In many of the villages the owners of the factory keep a 
store where the force of circumstances almost compel the 
workmen to trade. The amount of their bill is deducted 
from the wages of a family, and the surplus, if any, is paid 
over to the head of the household. Board is also deducted 
in the same way, and the amount goes to pay the bill the 
keeper of the boarding-house has contracted. This practice 
is followed even in instances where young men and women 
board with their parents. Many poor people see no money 
form one year to another, and others obtain a little some- 
times if any member of the family should happen to be 
employed elsewhere. One man had not received any money 
for at least seven years, as all he had earned had not been 
sufficient to pay his bills, and he was deeply in debt. This 
is an exceptional case, but there are many nearly as bad, 
and the majority have all had a slight touch of the same 
experience. When once in debt it is very difficult to get 
out. The prices of supplies are higher than they would be 
in private stores. The system of accounts between the 
operatives and the store is confusing to the former, many of 
whom, through their ignorance, are obliged to accept as true 
the results presented. In good times the work-people were 
allowed to run large bills, but now those who show a disposi- 
tion to exceed their income are put upon an allowance. 

There are common schools in the villages, but compara- 
tively little attention is paid to education. The French 
especially are extremely careless in this matter, and, as there 
are no compulsory measures used, many of the children are 
put to work very young, and have no chance to go to school. 

One cause of this is the small wages the operatives 



21 8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE 

receive, in niany cases the united earnings of all the family 
being barely sufificient to provide for their wants. 

In this instance, at least, capital is evidently oppressing 
labor. The employers are making some nioney, or they 
would close down. If their profits are ever so small, they 
should still do something for their laborers beyond what 
they are. They are wronging them in three ways. They 
are distressing them into positive want ; they are overwork- 
ing them ; they are neglecting their social, mental and moral 
training. 

The future of this industrial community is perspectively 
dark. Moral degradation and dense ignorance will assuredly 
be their lot, unless methods are pursued in regard to them 
in the future different from those in' the past. The employers 
have not manifested, nor do they now, any visible practical 
interest in their welfare. At the utmost they leave them 
severely alone. No means are provided for their education 
except the common school, which they do not use; no 
libraries, no reading-rooms, and very few social advantages. 
To work, to eat, to sleep, is the unvarying daily round. 

Here is a pen picture of a cooperative cummunity in the 
United States. It is a transfer from the same industrial 
section as the former. An industrial association has nearly 
sixty members, men and women, who are at the same time 
laborers and owners. A candidate for admission into the 
community must be sound in body, blameless in character, 
an abstainer from smoking and drinking, and must pay three 
hundred dollars into the general fund. For three months 
he is on trial ; at the expiration he may be voted out. In 
this way the association is not likely to be saddled with bad 
characters. The affairs of the community are managed by 
five directors, chosen by ballot, who appoint a president, 
secretary, superintendent, and select those who are to act as 
foremen of the shops. A member on probation receives 
wages slightly in excess of the cost of living, but as soon as 
he is elected into the society he is paid according to his 
abilit)', the rate varying from seven and a half to sixteen 



PEN PICTURE OF A CO-OPERATIVE ENTERPRISE. 219 

and a half dollars a week, the last named being exceeded in 
special cases. Wages are paid once a quarter, not in full, 
however; four and a half dollars a week being deducted for 
board and lodging, and one fourth of the worker's earnings 
being retained for investment in the association's capital 
fund. Thus, a man earning fifteen dollars a week will at 
the end of three months receive eighty-eight dollars in cash, 
and have forty-eight dollars added to his capital ; so that 
every member is compelled to save money and increase his 
monetary interest in the business. He cannot draw any 
money out of the fund, even the interest due to him being 
added to his capital, until it pleases him to withdraw from 
the community, when he — or, in case of his death, his rep- 
resentative — receives the whole of the money standing to 
his credit in the association books. What with the quarterly 
additions and the high compound interest, a member who 
holds his connection with the association for ten years will 
find his original investment swelled to a very respectable 
sum. Boys and women are put on the same footing as 
men, save that the former need only bring in one hundred 
instead of three hundred dollars to the common fund ; while 
the latter are let off yet easier with a contribution of twenty- 
five dollars, which they are allowed to pay by installments 
out of their earnings, and are only charged three dollars a 
week for their board and lodging. 

Business meetings are held at regular intervals to consider 
the directors' reports and statements of accounts, and to fix 
the rate at which each worker is to be paid for the ensuing 
period ; it being the strict rule of the association that the 
interest upon the invested capital — which is fixed at eight 
per cent — must be first secured; and if the dullness of trade 
threatens a falling off in the receipts, the difificulty is met 
by reducing the wages until things recover themselves. 

Every member is expected to be in his or her place when 
the machinery is started at seven in the morning ; any one 
making an imperfect day being mulcted ten per cent on the 
day's earnings. At twelve all adjourn to the home, where a 



220 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

good dinner is provided, and return to the shops at one and 
work until six. 

This industrial community is engaged in manufacturing 
toys, flags and emblems. In one month they shipped about 
four thousand seven hundred dollars* worth ; increased their 
capital by fifteen hundred dollars, and their joint wages 
amounted to one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three 
dollars. 

When the day's work is over they hurry to the boarding- 
house to change their working clothes for smarter attire ere 
they set down together to an early supper; and, supper dis- 
cussed, set about amusing themselves according to their 
several fancies. Some go for a walk, some for a row in a 
boat, some try their skill at foot-ball and other outdoor 
games, while the stay-at-homes settle down to their letters 
or their books, or gather round the piano for a little music. 
As the evening closes in, the family gather together to 
indulge in candy-pulling. Then the dining-room is cleared 
for a game at forfeits, the penalties attached to the redemp- 
tion sometimes affording amusement. At ten all retire for 
the night, and conscious of a well-spent day. The majority 
of the male recruits are steady workmen, tired of enforced 
idleness, and the consequent melting away of their savings. 
Most of the women have been lured from the harassing, 
underpaid work of teaching by the prospect of being able 
to lay by something for the future while earning a present 
livelihood. 

It is a trade-union that recognizes the claims of capital ; 
insists upon every worker working his best, and being paid 
according to his ability; discountenances the idler, the 
shuffler and the thriftless, and inculcates self-denial. So 
far the association has prospered. It has fulfilled its promise 
of providing constant and remunerative employment and a 
comfortable home for all belonging to it. 

The contrast between these two pictures of real indus- 
trial life in the United States is heightened by that of the 
South Manchester, Connecticut, silk industry, which is not a 



A MODEL ENTERPRISE. 221 

cooperative enterprise. Here the eight Cheney brothers 
operate the largest silk mill in the United States. They 
manufacture such a durable quality of silk that their labels 
and patterns are counterfeited in Europe. In the manage- 
ment of this industrial village the Cheney brothers have 
given a practical solution of the pleasant and equitable 
relation between capital and labor. 

They have established, and been able to manage with 
surprising success, an ideal manufacturing village. The rep- 
utation they have gained among philanthropists and econo- 
mists is hardly second to the reputation of their silks. They 
started their mills, and have conducted them for business 
purposes, not merely for social experiments. But they 
began and have continued in the right way. They have 
treated their employes not as slaves, but as men and women. 
Instead of living in the city, away from their mills, as most 
stockholders do, and thus having no personal interest in the 
welfare of the village, they have built their own houses upon 
beautiful sites near their mills. They have built a large 
number of cottages in the place, which they let to married 
employes at a low rent. They have established boarding- 
houses for the unmarried, and school-houses for the children. 
A large hall, erected and furnished at a cost of nearly sixty 
thousand dollars, which is supplied with a good organ, 
scenery, and dramatic appliances, is one of the best monu- 
ments of their generosity. A free library and reading-room, 
furnishes their employes with the latest newspapers and mag- 
azines and the best current literature. Unsectarian religious 
services and a Sunday-school are provided every Sunday in 
the hall, the Cheneys paying the expenses of preaching. An 
excellent orchestra, numbering eight or ten pieces, organized 
from among the employes, and, accompanied on the piano 
by the accomplished daughter of one of the employers, 
renders some of the most difficult classical music. 

The cottages are each supplied with water, gas, and a 
pleasant garden plot. The mills are well lighted and venti- 
lated. The -grounds are laid out with great taste ; there is 



222 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

no fence in the whole place. In fact, everything is done to 
make it pleasant and convenient for the employes. 

The happy results which follow the efforts of these two 
last-mentioned managements may open a new way to adjust 
the queston of the elevation of laborers and the relation 
between labor and capital. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CAPITAL. 

IT was noticed in giving the divisions of political economy 
that there were two forces in production, labor and capi- 
tal. Whatever labor may do, it is a crippled force in produc- 
tion without the aid of capital. The two together form an 
economic firm for the production of wealth. Capital is 
money employed in production. This is the only clear 
definition for capital recognized by political economy. 

Capital is not synonymous with wealth. All capital is 
wealth ; but all wealth is not capital. Suppose a farmer's 
crop this year gives him a hundred bushels of wheat to 
spare. He may lay it up in his granary for his own future 
use; or he may sell it for gold and bury the gold for safe 
keeping; or he may spend the gold for a fine picture with 
which to adorn his parlor. In either case it is a part of his 
wealth ; but since, in either case, it will do nothing to 
increase his next year's crop or income, it is not capital. If, 
however, he exchanges his surplus wheat for a horse, or 
spends the avails of it on labor to clear and drain his fields, 
or buys with it a share of stock in a flouring-mill, he turns 
this part of his wealth into capital. His wheat is gone ; or 
the money is gone; but in the horse, or the improved 
land, or the share in the mill, it is to work out for him more 
wealth next year. 

Capital is not synonymous with money. Money buried 
in the ground produces nothing. A man intending to start 
a woolen-mill, may need first to turn some of his property 
into money, with which to pay for buildings and machinery. 
His fifty thousand dollars deposited in the bank for this pur- 
pose, is his prospective capital; but it will not become for 
him actual capital, till it is paid out for a building, a water- 
wheel, spinning-jenneys, and power-looms. When his estab- 

223 



224 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

lishment is complete, his money will be all gone ; but now he 
has his capital all ready for service. Money in circulation is 
an instrument of exchange, and so performs an important 
function for all productive industry; but it is just a wheel- 
barrow to pass things from one to another. The confusion 
of ideas comes from the fact that capital, and indeed all 
wealth, is estimated in terms of money; but in reality, only 
a small portion of an individual's or a nation's capital is in 
the form of money. 

Money is capital when it is invested in any enterprise or 
industry for the purpose of aiding labor, or with the motive 
of producing more wealth. A man may have one thousand 
dollars in the bank on deposit. This is not capital, as it 
brings him no return ; leaving it there a hundred years, he 
in the end only receives a thousand dollars. If he takes that 
thousand dollars and purchases a piece of land in the west ; 
or with it builds a house in some growing town, to rent, in 
either case, it is capital, as it is invested for the purpose of 
making more money. If it be used in purchasing timber 
for manufacturing purposes, it is capital, as it is engaged with 
labor for the object of making money. In short, capital is 
money when in use. Whether money be in material, or in 
tools and machinery, still it is capital, as it is an invested 
force, intended to produce a larger return than when put in 
the material or the machinery. 

Capital is the result of former labor or skill ; it is itself a 
product of labor. Every dollar represents just so much 
labor, by some one at some time. Capital, as all wealth, is a 
convenient representative of labor, held in the form as a sur- 
plus left over from present consumption. If labor be sus- 
pended upon any material before it reaches its proposed 
final form, as when trees are cut into logs or logs are sawn 
into lumber, or hides are tanned into leather, these half- 
completed products have value as goods, but they require 
additional labor to bring them into the final forms of houses 
or furniture, or boots and shoes, in which they can meet the 
wants of man. If the first labor is done by one workman, 



THE FORMS OF CAPITAL.. 225 

and the incomplete product be sold to a second, it evidently 
comes to the latter with the labor of the former stored up 
in it. This is the first form of capital. The second workman 
buys it because of the work in it, and because it will save 
him the work of going to the woods for his materials. It is 
to him prepared material. 

If in place of preparing material the first workman had 
made a tool or machine, it would have come to the second 
not only as stored-up labor, but also as stored-up force and 
skill. Instead of capital passing from the material into 
money, it passed into the form of skill, or rather an increase 
of capital under the skill of intellectual force in making the 
machine. Capital is a representative of the reserved fruits 
of former labor, turned into the labor of new production. 

In this aspect of the matter, capital is simply past labor 
embodied, and reserved for present labor to work with. 
Hence we see that labor and capital are not so diverse as 
many suppose. In nature they are akin, and indispensable 
to each other in the processes of production ; always com- 
bined for a common end. They are set in antagonism to 
each .other only through a popular sentiment, or an organi- 
zation of society radically false and wrong. 

The forms of capital are as various as the employments 
of men. The farmer possesses seed, tools and animals ; the 
manufacturer possesses cotton, wool, flax, and all kinds of 
raw material ; the merchant possesses sugar, tea, coffee, and 
all the various articles of trade. But all these things may be 
without value. 

But in order to effect this intended creation of value, it is 
found that intermediate agents must^ in all these cases, be 
employed. A farmer could not reap with his fingers, nor a 
miner dig with his hands, nor a manufacturer labor without 
tools. All these instruments, the use of which is necessary 
to the creation of value, are, therefore, also termed capital. 

Thus, the plows, harrows, spades, carts, and working 
aninoals of the farmer are a part of his capital. To the 
same class, also, perhaps, belongs his land. 
15 



226 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The axes, planes and hammers, of the mechanic, and 
the buildings and machinery of the manufacturer, are their 
capital. 

Under this division of capital may also be included the 
ship of the merchant, the wagon of the teamster, and the 
railroad and locomotive of the proprietor. 

Values depend on the destruction of values, and only by 
the change of capital from one value to another can it 
increase. There is, in the very act of change, a destruction 
of value. He who changes iron into steel, consumes the 
iron, destroys that particular value and creates another in its 
place. He who sows wheat, destroys the value of that 
wheat, for food ; and he who spins cotton, destroys the value 
of cotton wool as cotton wool. That is, neither of these 
substances can ever be used again for the purposes to which 
they were before adapted. If, however, the industry of the 
laborer has been skillfully directed, the product will have 
acquired an exchangeable value sufficient to replace the 
original material in additional quantity, and also to repay 
him for his labor, and pay the interest of his capital. The 
amount of difference between the exchangeable value of his 
original material, together with his labor, and the exchange- 
able value of his product, is his profit. The annual amount ' 
of these profits, is his annual gross revenue. The annual 
amount of these profits in a nation, is the gross national 
revenue. 

It matters not in what form capital reappears, if it only 
reappears in a form bearing a greater exchangeable value. 
The smith exchanges gold or silver for coal ; he burns up 
his coal and nothing is left but ashes. But it has produced 
an invisible substance, called caloric, by means of which he 
has been able to give such an increased value to iron, as will 
not only replace his gold and silver, but also the iron itself, 
and will also pay him for his labor. The farmer exchanges 
his gold or silver for manure, but this manure will so increase 
his harvest, that he will be able to replace his gold and silver, 
and also be abundantly repaid for his labor. The principle 



UNPRODUCTIVE CAPITAL. 22/ 

is the same in all cases of change of capital. It matters not 
into what we change our capital, nor how valuable the sub- 
stance may be that is exchanged, if we only receive in return 
a greater amount of exchangeable value, or that which will 
procure for us a greater amount of objects of desire. 

We see, hence, in what manner nations and individuals 
grow rich. It is by uniting the industry of this year to the 
capital of last year, and by this process creating an aug- 
mentation of capital. 

Though loosely so, when money is bringing in a return it 
is by some writers called productive capital ; when it is not 
in use it is called unproductive capital. When capital is 
unproductive it is losing annually its ordinary rate of inter- 
est ; because it must have been purchased with that which 
would have yielded that interest. Hence every sound 
economist is anxious to have the whole of his capital pro- 
ductively invested. He who acts otherwise is ignorant of 
the principles of production, is indolent, or slovenly. The 
farmer who allows a heap of manure to lie in his farm-yard 
for a year, instead of spreading it on his land ; the merchant 
who allows his ships to lie idle, or his goods to be scattered 
unsold, over several warehouses; or the manufacturer who 
owns twice as much machinery as he is able to employ, are 
annually losing all the accumulation which this capital, 
properly invested, would produce. And still more, as we 
have seen that all gains arise from small and successive accu- 
mulations, and as almost every product is liable to waste, it 
is manifest that habitual negligence of this sort must greatly 
diminish, if it do not entirely consume, all the net revenue 
of an establishment. The effort of every man should be to 
unite every fraction of his capital with industry, and to keep 
it so united continually. Any gain, even the smallest, is 
better than no gain at all. 

The process of accumulation in all branches of produc- 
tion is largely the same. It is also true that where capital 
is free — that is, where there are no restrictions upon the use 
of it — there can be no great permanent difference in the 



228 THE SCIENCE OF * ATIONAL LIFE. 

rate of accumulation between the different modes in which 
it is employed. If the profits of one kind of business are 
above the average rate, other capital will flow into that chan- 
nel. If the profit in any b^ianch of production be below 
the ordinary rate, capital w!!l be withdrawn from it. If 
commerce be unusually lucrative, men will leave their other 
pursuits and devote themselves to commerce, until, by com- 
petition, they reduce the profits to the ordinary rate. If 
commerce be depressed, men will leave it, until, by the 
reduction of the supply of commercial facilities, the rate of 
profit is increased. Rates of profit cannot be rendered per- 
manently unequal in any other manner than by oppressive 
legislation. The differences in profit in the various depart- 
ments of industry are, therefore, more apparent than real. 
When profit is sure, it is, of course, less than when it is 
uncertain. 

Capital, as well as labor, is limited by restrictions which 
make it either impossible or impolitic to run to a high 
amount in any given industry. Before the laboring strength 
in any community is fully taken up, the way is open for the 
employment of fresh capital; and this capital may com- 
mand the needful assistance from labor. Nothing is to be 
apprehended from the consequent multiplication of com- 
modities. The desires of men are ever transcending that 
which is possessed ; and the greater the increase in com- 
modities, the more universal the ability by mutual exchange 
to gratify these desires. As long as products can be created, 
they may safely be created, if not in all, yet in the great 
majority of their several varieties. It is only when capital 
has so accumulated that it can secure to itself no more 
labor, that its growth necessarily ceases. If an effort be 
made to enforce its employment beyond this point, the new 
capital comes into use at the expense of the old ; there 
arises a hot competition between capitalists for laborers, till, 
by the rapid fall of profits consequent thereon the growth 
of capital is effectually stopped. The immediate limitation, 
then, which capital feels, is the number of laborers which 



THINGS WHICH LIMIT CAPITAL. 229 

a community can furnish ; while the ultimate limitation is 
the number of laborers which can be sustained by the capital 
invested in the community. 

A second element determining the amount of capital, is 
the state of invention. In proportion as the machinery is 
poor, and the instruments employed feeble, will the capital 
invested be small. Two hundred men, each in his own house, 
with a hand-loom, will demand for their constant occupation 
but a small part of the capital necessary to sustain a cotton- 
factory with the best machinery, giving full occupation to 
the same number of hands. Each step in the arts usually 
involves a larger cost in machinery, and always, by the more 
rapid production which it secures, a larger amount of mate- 
rials and of products, partial and complete. If, therefore, 
capital, in any given state of invention, should reach the 
limits assigned by labor, those limits might again be enlarged 
by any device increasing the efficiency of labor, and thus the 
amount of capital it can employ. 

Because these are the limits of capital, it does not follow 
that it will necessarily go on to increase till these are reached. 
The extent and rapidity of its actual growth in any com- 
munity, will depend on the strength of the motives which 
lead to abstinence. These are the variety and utility of the 
objects inciting desire, the security with which they are 
sought and enjoyed, the amount of the returns which absti- 
nence secures, and the thoughtful practice of economy. 

Capital depends upon reproduction, through the change 
of form. This change is passing on capital in each of its 
forms. The instruments slowly and surely wear away by 
use, the materials are immediately destroyed, food is rapidly 
consumed, clothing more slowly, and the house more gradu- 
ally still, but none the less surely ; and the finished product 
sold is lost to the producer, to appear again in new imple- 
ments, new materials, new means of subsistence, and new 
products. Thus is the unceasing round of values destroyed 
for the sake of greater values produced. The difference 
between the value consumed and the value produced, is the 



230 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

profit — the end steadily aimed at. It matters not in what 
form the value reappears, provided only it is greater than 
that destroyed. If a value is destroyed to produce another 
only equal to it, we lose our labor. If a value is destroyed 
and nothing is reproduced, we lose both labor and capital. 
Individuals and nations grow rich only as the value created 
is superior to the value of both the labor and the capital 
consumed. 

Mr. Mill says: "The greater part, in value, of the wealth 
now existing in England, has been produced by human 
hands within the last twelve months. A very small propor- 
tion indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten 
years ago ; of the present productive capital of the country, 
scarcely any part except farm-houses and a few ships and 
machines, and even these would not, in most cases, have 
survived so long, if fresh labor had not been employed 
within that period in putting them in repair. Capital is 
kept in existence from age to age, like population, not by 
preservation, but by reproduction." 

Credit is an agency which, though not property, performs 
some of the functions of property, and enters largely into 
production, as it does into all the forms of business. By 
means of this, men who are without wealth of any kind, buy 
materials, employ labor, purchase machinery, and produce 
goods. 

Credit is the power to borrow other people's property. 
It is the confidence which one's character and circumstances 
inspire in other men, and which induces them to entrust the 
credited party with their goods or money, on their promise to 
repay the same, in a stipulated time, either with or without 
interest or compensation for use. It is a purchase with the 
payment deferred. 

Credit fills, necessarily, an immense space in the world of 
business. The laborer gives credit to his employer, at least 
till pay-day comes. Goods are bought and sold on credit ; 
materials are furnished, work is performed, great industrial 
enterprises are undertaken, and immense transfers of wealth 



CREDIT AS CAPITAL. 23 1 

are made daily, on credit ^ — that is, on a promise of future 
payment, secured by the good faith of the party promising, 
or by other securities. Every debt that is owed implies a 
credit given to the debtor. All debts are also credits. All 
notes, drafts, bills of exchange — all bank notes and green- 
backs — all bonds and mortgages, all securities of govern- 
ments or corporations, imply so many credits. 

Credit is not wealth in itself. It does not count in the 
world's resources in the census of actual values; but it has 
the power to command the use of wealth, and therefore may 
be counted as a sort of reserved capital. Materials and labor 
bought on credit serve the same purpose as those bought 
for money. 

The importance of capital is told by every piece of labor. 
Its presence is seen in all production which goes beyond a 
single transformation, a single transaction. No protracted 
operations can be performed by a single individual without 
capital. To say nothing of the instruments and materials 
involved, all of which are capital, there is a constant increase 
of value as the process progresses ; and each previous value, 
as soon as it is realized, becomes capital in reference to the 
succeeding. But when several persons perform different 
operations in one manufacture, the presence of capital 
becomes still more obvious. A larger amount of material is 
required, since the labor of several, sometimes of very many, 
is to be employed. The partially completed product no 
sooner passes from the hands of one set of workmen to those 
of another, than its place must be immediately supplied ; 
and thus, when the entire series is in full operation, a large 
value may be accumulated in the several stages of manufact- 
ure. In proportion as the division of labor becomes more 
complete, the number of laborers, and hence the accumula- 
tion of capital, will increase. 

A business which has capital sufficient to be complete 
in all its departments, and having each department fully 
provided with material, machinery and men, is the most 
profitable. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

USE OF MONEY IN PRODUCTION. 

NO one man can produce all the articles he needs for com- 
fort and enjoyment, because his time, skill and capital 
are limited, and many things which he desires^ must come 
from other climes and soils. Besides, he can work to much 
greater advantage, produce more easily, and accumulate more 
rapidly, if he confine himself to one or a few articles of pro- 
duction. If one man is a carpenter, another a shoemaker, 
the one wanting a house, the other shoes, it would be to the 
advantage of both if the carpenter should build the house 
for the shoemaker, and the shoemaker should make the shoes 
for the carpenter. This kind of exchange is called barter. 

Imagine a tribe or nation to whom barter is unknown, 
but who have learned to accumulate property. Each family 
aims to provide all it needs by its own labor; and whatever 
its surplus may be, it stores away. The monstrous incon- 
venience of such a condition is seen, because the surplus 
may be perishable. But, what is far more serious, siicJi a 
surplus could have no value ; for unless it could be sold, which 
means exchanged for some other articles giving comfort 
or enjoyment, it would simply accumulate, and in time rot. 
Unless a surplus product can be exchanged for something 
else, it is absolutely worthless. 

Therefore, to establish industry, it is necessary that prop- 
erty be secure, and that the possessors of property be able 
freely to exchange it for other articles which they may desire ; 
also, if the possibility of exchange be taken away, produc- 
tion will cease. 

If two men were engaged in production, miles apart, one 
in the manufacture of cloth, the other in raising coffee, they 
might both be benefited by exchanging one article for the 

232 



THE PURPOSE OF MONEY. 233 

other. They would at first be at the trouble and expense of 
finding each other, and would probably waste much time in 
this pursuit, which would be just so much time taken from 
the production of cloth and coffee. If a third person should 
step in, ready to carry the coffee to the producer of cloth, 
and return with cloth to the producer of coffee, plainly that 
would be an advantage to both. They could go on in the 
production of their special articles of trade for which they 
were fitted. This third person is a merchant, and his busi- 
ness is commerce. But this merchant may be a rogue. To 
meet the provision for care here, we have the ingenious 
contrivance called money. 

The government coins the money used by its people. 
This means that the government, at a mint, assays the gold 
and silver, purifies them, and by a mark on each coin denotes 
its fineness and weight : that is to say, it certifies that a 
silver dollar, or a gold five-dollar piece, really contains a 
dollar's worth of silver, or five dollars' worth of gold. 

It follows that a gold or silver dollar is an object having 
a real value. If you choose to melt it, you can sell the gold 
or silver in it for a dollar. If you give it in exchange for a 
dinner, you do not swindle the tavern keeper. 

The government, having for the general convenience and 
economy coined the money or certified its value, may 
rightly, for the same end, punish false coiners or counter- 
feiters ; and it may declare that its coinage shall be accepted 
by all the citizens in their transactions at the weight and 
purity which it has certified, which is called making it a 
"legal tender." This is in order that no man shall put his 
neighbor to trouble, in making payments, by disputing these 
qualities of the coin. 

But it is evident that this does not give the government 
a right to debase the coinage by certifying that to be a 
dollar which contains less than a dollar's worth of gold or 
silver, for this would be to cheat the people ; still less can 
it afifix arbitrary denominations to things, as pieces of birch- 
bark, or of paper, and command them to be accepted as 



234 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

money, or make them a legal tender, as we say, for this 
would be to authorize one citizen to swindle another. All 
that the government does in coining is for the general con- 
venience, to declare the purity and certify the actual weight 
of a piece of metal. 

Money forms but a very small part of the capital of any 
country. Every one may easily judge of this from his own 
observation. How very small a portion of any one's pos- 
sessions is in money. And if this be true of every individual 
separately, it must be true of all the individuals collectively. 

The sole use of money is to facilitate exchanges. It is 
an instrument for the saving of labor, and for the perform- 
ing of labor with greater accuracy. Of this any one may 
convince himself in a moment if he will imagine two cases, 
in the one of which he was obliged to make several exchanges 
without money, and the other in which he could make them 
with it. 

Money gains nothing by exchange, but rather loses in 
value, like eveiy other machinery which is worn out while it 
accomplishes its object. Hence, it belongs to the class of 
fixed capital. It is subject to slow wear, which must be 
replaced out of the circulating capital of the country. And 
hence, as any country may have a greater amount of any 
particular kind of fixed capital than it needs, as, for instance, 
of any particular kind of machinery, and as, when this is 
the case, it sends it abroad, or, in other words, makes it an 
article of export, or changes it into circulating capital, so is 
it with money. If a country has more money than is suffi- 
cient to accomplish its exchanges, it sends it abroad, and 
receives back something that it needs more. Such is perma- 
nently the case in mining countries, and such is at times the 
condition of almost every commercial nation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CAPITAL AND LABOR. 

CAPITAL and labor are the two great forces of produc- 
tion ; they are the comparisons of strength in all the 
industries — the twin giants of civilization. They share in 
the joint result of production. Each is necessary to the 
other; each is helpless without the other. The most stal- 
wart man can produce nothing without food and clothings 
tools and materials, — the fruit of previous labor, viz : capital. 
Factories filled with ingenious machinery, warehouses full of 
cotton, stores of finished goods, capital in whatever form or 
amount, can do nothing to increase itself. Thus labor and 
capital are the two necessary and inseparable factors in the 
production of wealth. 

The spirit of accumulation, that of industry and self- 
denial being once aroused in a people, and encouraged by 
their security in the enjoyment of property and facility in 
exchanging their surplus products, which gives them value, 
it is clear, considering the difference in men, some being 
weak of body, less persistent, less ingenious, or less self- 
denying than others, that inevitably some will accumulate 
less property than others; and that many will, in fact, 
accumulate nothing, but consume all they produce, and as 
fast as they produce it. 

It is therefore fortunate for the less prosperous of man- 
kind that the spirit of accumulation leads those who own 
property to seek ways in which to use this very property or 
capital in adding to their stores ; for thus the efforts of the 
poor, the non-capitalists, are lightened, and made more pro- 
ductive for themselves than they otherwise could be. 

Capital is simply accumulated savings. In the United 
States any laborer may hope to acquire property, if he has 

235 



236 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

health and intelligence, by the exercise of industry and 
economy ; and it is one of the commonest, as well as, to a 
thoughtful man, one of the most satisfactory, experiences 
to see a young man, after laboring faithfully for hire for a 
time, presently begin on his own account, and by and by 
become, in his turn, the employer of other men's labor as 
well as his own. 

While it will probably, for a long time to come, be neces- 
sary as well as advantageous to the mass of men to labor for 
wages, that country is the most fortunate in which it is the 
easiest for an industrious and self-denying citizen to lift him- 
self from the condition of a hired man to that of independ- 
ence, however modest. It is extremely important that 
neither laws nor customs shall interfere with this change, 
but that all doors shall be opened for it. For though not 
one in a thousand of the laborers for wages may choose thus 
to elevate himself to independence, it adds materially to the 
contentment and happiness of all to believe that if they 
choose to do so they might ; and that efforts not beyond 
their powers would always open the way to them. 

As the accumulated wealth or savings in any country is 
thus a source of subsistence and a means of advancement, not 
merely to the individual owners of this wealth, capital, or 
property, but to the whole population, and especially to that 
part of it which labors for wages, and who could not receive 
wages if accumulated capital did not exist, or if it were 
destroyed, so it may be said without exaggeration that no 
part of the community has so vital an interest in the abund- 
ance, freedom and security of capital as those who labor for 
wages. For though the individual capitalist may be seri- 
ously inconvenienced by events which lessen or make inse- 
cure his accumulations, he has still the resources of removing 
his capital, especially if it consists of money, to a more 
secure place, of withdrawing it, at whatever loss, from enter- 
prises which afford employment by giving the means out of 
which to pay wages, or, in the final resort, of living upon it 



MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF LABOR AND CAPITAL. 237 

without seeking any return for its use. In any of these 
cases the laborers suffer first and most severely. 

The relation, therefore, of capital and labor is one of 
unity and mutual dependence. While capital is the product 
of labor, it is a product upon which labor reserves a claim to 
direct into a new investment for a fresh employment of 
labor. For labor to discard capital it must disjoin itself 
from all its products, and everlastingly begin anew. Its 
work of yesterday, laying in the form of money to-day, must 
be rejected in its work of to-morrow. The tools, and 
machinery and material it has gathered must be abandoned, 
if it will not unite its efforts with capital, for these are the 
usual forms which capital takes to aid labor. The laborer 
who would reject capital must disarm himself of all tools, 
buildings and material, even educated skill, and abandon all 
the inventive genius by which the experience of labor has 
provided means and ways for easier production. A man 
cannot cultivate a piece of ground without, making use of 
the capital resting in that land and its improvements, 
whether it belongs to himself or a pure capitalist. He can- 
not clean the streets of a city, or clean the paths of its parks 
without being dependent upon the capital invested in the 
trade of that city, for the commerce of a city necessitates 
clean streets and beautiful parks for convenience and com- 
fort. Labor, at every turn of its glaring eye, looks into the 
golden countenance of capital, and is dependent upon it. 

Capital is just as dependent upon labor. Capital without 
labor can produce nothing. It is useless unless called into 
use by some industry. Without labor it lays in the house, 
or vault, with no more value until used, than so much wood 
or paper. If there is any economic difference in the scale of 
dependence, capital is more dependent upon labor, than is 
labor upon capital. Labor may, by beginning over again 
the process of civilization, slowly and painfully produce 
capital. But without labor capital is entirely useless, per- 
fectly worthless, A large investment may be made in 
western land, in an unsettled section. That capital will, for 



238 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

all time, lay as a dead force, unless the brain and muscle of 
labor direct the industrial forces to operate in that section. 
That capital will not show much return of its investment 
until a railroad is built near its location. But what a mass 
of accumulated labor lies back of this achievement! First, 
the study of men of broad commercial foresight in consider- 
ing if a road through that section would pay; then the skill 
and labor of a corps of engineers in determining the exact 
line along which the road could be built the cheapest ; the 
work of interviewing the owners of the land and securing the 
right of way ; the labor of grading, and making and bringing 
the ties upon the ground ; the labor of mining the iron ore, 
and coal to smith it, and the heavy work of manufacturing 
the rails and spikes ; the labor of laying the rails and ballast- 
ing the road ; the complicated and almost unmeasured labor, 
directed by the finest mechanical skill of manufacturing an 
engine, without which the road would be of no utility; and 
back of all this the long years of hard brain-work by which, 
under the pressure of inventive genius, the expansive power 
of steam was discovered and the steam-engine was invented. 
All this aggregation of labor has to be calculated as a known 
force in the construction of that road. And that road has to 
be built in order that capital may be of service and pay as 
an investment. For without an outlet for produce no labor 
spent on the land would pay. The same fact, illustrated by 
capital put in land, holds good in mechanical or mercantile 
investment : that to capital must be added labor before it 
can become productive. 

Therefore capital must recognize the use of labor upon 
which it is so dependent, and its course or policy should be 
to carefully avoid antagonizing labor. From this it is forci- 
bly seen that there can be no divorce of labor and capital. 
Everywhere the two stand and work together in mutual 
dependence. Apart they are nothing; together they are 
well nigh omnipotent. They have filled the world with 
beauty plenty and wealth, and lifted humanity from the 
barrenness of barbarism to the fruitfulness of civilization. 



WEALTH INCREASES FASTER THAN POPULATION. 239 

The relative growth of capital and labor is one of the 
questions in which political economy is greatly interested. 
Capital may be increased to any desired extent. Human 
labor can multiply only with the multiplication of popula- 
tion. It is true that the real laboring force never equals the 
entire labor power of the population, and the active capital 
never equals the entire wealth. Much of both labor and of 
possible capital always lie idle. Neither labor nor capital 
come into service till the demand for them promises a 
reward sufificient to draw them out. They both work for 
wages ; for the interest on capital is the wages paid for its 
service. 

It is a rule of values that interest on capital falls as wages 
for labor rise. History in modern times shows that capital 
increases faster than labor ; and this proves that capital has 
been held at too high a value, in proportion to the value 
laid on labor. Wealth has increased faster than population. 
The following table will show how this has run. It is made 
out from Superintendent Walker's census report. 



DATE. 


POPULATION. 


AGGREGATE WEALTH. 


WEALTH 
PER CAPITA. 


1850 
i860 
1870 
1880 


23,191,876 
31,443,321 

38,558,371 
50,155,783 


$ 7,135,780,218 
16,159,616,068 
30,068,518,507 
37,100,000,000 


$307.68 
543-89 
779-81 
896.40 



From this table it is seen that the increase of wealth has 
been much more rapid than the increase of population. The 
same fact is proven by the steady declining of interest on cap- 
ital, while the wages paid for labor have steadily increased. 
A half century ago the wages paid servant girls were from 
fifty to seventy-five cents a week; common laborers were 
paid from fifty to sixty cents a day. To-day the same class 
are paid from one dollar and fifty cents to two dollars a week 
for girls, and about one to one and a half dollars a day, or 



240 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

about twenty-five dollars a month, for laborers. During the 
same time, the interest on common loans has fallen about 
three per cent. This increase of the price of labor, and 
decrease of interest on capital, prove that capital grows 
faster than the labor power of the world. With the growth 
of wealth and population, the power of combination in- 
creases ; there is also great increase in the productiveness of 
labor ; while every such step is attended by a decline in the 
power of capital to command the services of the laborer, 
and a corresponding increase of the power of labor to com- 
mand capital. The laborer's proportion of the increased 
products tends thus to steadily increase, while that of the 
capitalist tends as regularly to decline. 

Capital and labor will move along in harmony in the 
production of industry if the laws binding their union are 
permitted to have free force. It is important that capital 
has free and general distribution. It is better that it be in 
many, rather than in a few, hands. Laborers themselves 
should hold a fair share of the working capital of any coun- 
try. All means, therefore, which encourage laborers to save 
their earnings are economic measures, advantageous alike to 
capital and labor. As industry is limited by capital, every 
increase of capital should demand an increase of labor. The 
great regulator is free competition on either side, under 
which the tendency is toward an equilibrium ; for nature 
provides for the steady increase of both capital and labor in 
some definite proportion. 

Labor and capital should both have their just reward. 
No one questions the right of the laborer to a reward for his 
toil. As capital is the fruit of past labor saved, the right of 
its owner to a reward for its use is equally plain. The 
reward of each must come from the product of their joint 
investment. 

Both capital and labor should be free from the evil 
restrictions of monopolies, or special legislation. The inhe- 
rent right of every man to do what he will with his own, 
provided he do no wrong to his neighbor, is not to be ques- 



NEED FOR INTELLIGENCE. 241 

tioned. Ordinarily, each will judge best for himself as to 
the use he will make of both his labor and his capital. 

The general intellectual and moral culture of a people is 
an important condition of the effective cooperation of labor 
and capital. Intelligence in the laborer adds much to his 
efficiency. Honesty and integrity are of the highest conse- 
quence to the safe investment of capital. With reference 
to the cooperation of the two, it is important that both 
parties as they meet be able to take broad views of their 
common interests and mutual dependence. Harmony 
between the two requires mutual respect ; and the basis of 
this is self-respect on the part of each, which springs from a 
clear, intelligent understanding of relations, rights and priv- 
ileges. Thus means for the general education of a people, 
and the culture of good consciences by all rehgious influences, 
have an economical value which cannot be over-rated. 

There is reason to believe that laborers have some occa- 
sion to complain of hardships from the oppression of capital ; 
yet the wrong is not all on one side. The agitation of 
questions at issue between the parties will do good if it 
leads to a better understanding and a controlling regard 
for their common interests. But measures which directly 
increase jealousy between them, organizations which con- 
template hostility and violence, can only aggravate the evil, 
and work damage to both sides. Combinations on either 
side to rule out fair competition, and repress freedom of 
individual judgment and action, are positively and only 
mischievous to both capital and labor. 
16 



CHAPTER XVI. 

EFFECT OF LEGISLATION ON CAPITAL AND LABOR. 

IT has been a principle of action in American legislation 
to make as few laws as possible to embarrass American 
industries. Government is the friend of production, and it 
is under the shadow of government that labor and capital 
are busy, and go forth together to build up the nation's 
wealth. 

The chief function of the American government in con- 
nection with production, is protection ; to furnish an open 
field in which it may bring forward its own motives, guide 
its actions by its own laws, and enjoy its own reward. The 
economic action of men is so far social, is so far in harmony 
with those interests which it is the especial office of govern- 
ment to cherish, as not ordinarily to demand any constraint 
or coercion beyond the common criminal code. Not only 
does the line of action marked out by economic science run 
parallel with the higher interests of man, and minister to 
them, but this lower interest is amply able to furnish the 
safest, most general, and most efificient motives, drawn from 
all departments of enjoyments, for effort in its own field. 
The impulse which most effectually works the forces of pro- 
duction is an internal impulse, drawn from its own rewards 
and the relations of those rewards to the civilization and 
science of the times. Of all departments, the economic is 
the most thoroughly self-sustaining, in the strength and uni- 
versality of its motives, and least of all needs aid from with- 
out. Money secures or increases nearly all our enjoyments; 
hence there is no province of action from which it does not 
bring inducements to effort. The absorbing love of gain, 
ever ready to pass into avarice, and withhold those very 
ministrations to the social good for which it primarily exists, 

242 



WHAT IS A MONOPOLY? 243 

can first and best, of all our impulses, be emancipated from 
the patronage of govenment. Indeed, it is with its own 
products alone that govenments undertake to stimulate pro- 
duction, and the increased reward bestowed at one point is 
plundered from another portion of its own field. Industry 
best knows how to apportion her own rewards, and is neither 
profited nor pleased with any interference. 

In some forms of production, legislation is an actual par- 
ticipant with labor and capital. There are many labors 
which must be attended to, and yet devolve rightly on no 
individual producer. Many of them, if performed by an 
individual or large body of persons, can make them no 
recompense, or at best only a small one, and that secured 
with much vexation. This class properly falls on society as 
a whole, and hence on government, as its representative. 
Here belong the construction of roads, light-houses, water- 
breaks, clearing of harbors and rivers, establishment of 
currency and postal service. Those internal improvements, 
from which no income corresponding to the cost can be 
secured, properly fall to the government. 

In connection both with the beneficial and injurious 
action of civil law on production, we have the subject of 
monopolies. A monopoly is any kind of process, or instru- 
ment of production, restricted in whole or in part by law. 
Nothing should be included within the term which does not 
involve a right in addition to those natural rights protected 
by civil law. There is a sense in which all property may be 
termed a monopoly, as its possession and use are necessarily 
exclusive, and that which is one man's cannot be open to 
the occupation of another. Thus land is called a great 
monopoly. It is a monopoly, and the worst form of 
monopoly, as we have already shown, if its acquisition and 
transfer are restricted by law, but no more a monopoly than 
any other species of property if its possession is open to all. 
Nothing is gained by the term monopoly if it is made to 
include every economical advantage, from whatsoever source 
derived, since all the appropriated powers of production 



244 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

would thus be monopolies, the very act of appropriation 
involving exclusion. Of these powers, a part is restricted by 
nature to certain owners — such are personal qualities ; another 
part is left open to the general effort — such is land. Society 
sometimes goes beyond the restrictions of nature, and estab- 
lishes restrictions of her own. These give rise to monopolies. 

The effect of a monopoly is to limit the production in the 
department to which it applies, and thereby to raise the price 
and profits. Monopolies are illegitimately conferred, as a 
matter of favoritism, government losing sight of the equality 
of citizens, and distinguishing between them ; or are legiti- 
mately conferred as a compensation for a corresponding ser- 
vice done to production. Belonging to this class is the 
exclusive trade in any article, and all patents and copy 
rights. Inventors and writers, though among the most valu- 
able of laborers, are not able, from the nature of the product 
realized, to obtain its immediate pecuniary advantages. To 
relieve these obstacles government gives to the individual, 
for a limited time, the exclusive disposition of his product. 

The rights of corporations, so far as they pertain to pro- 
duction and are bestowed at the option of government, are 
monopolies. A railroad company is a monopoly, and a close 
monopoly, till parallel roads are authorized. Banks, when 
charters are granted on the fixed conditions of a banking 
law, are open monopolies — monopolies, since the restrictions 
are assigned by law ; open monopolies, since these restric- 
tions are the same for all. 

Railroads, involving in their construction the violation of 
the ordinary rights of individuals, can only be authorized by 
the voice of the community whose interests are thereby 
affected. The government, the representative of an organ- 
ized society, may suspend the rights of individuals, and force 
the sale of private property for a public purpose. No such 
power can belong to individuals or to companies, save only as 
by a special incorporating act it has been imparted to them 
for a limited and particular purpose. This new and addi- 



WHEN MONOPOLY IS LEGITIMATE. 245 

tional right vests in railroad companies, by virtue of a 
specific legislative act, and constitutes them monopolies. 

There are two classes of legitimate monopolies: the 
restriction in use or in sale of a discovery, an invention, or a 
literary production, to him whose it is, and the restriction of 
certain departments of production by conditions necessary 
for the safety of all. 

In the first class, the rights of the individual are secured, 
and encouragement given to a most valuable class of laborers. 
But, as their rights are guaranteed by law, and are solely 
dependent upon its protection, it is evident that the law- 
giver is to settle, in view of common interests, what length 
of use constitutes adequate compensation and encourage- 
ment. The right, as a practical, available right, is the 
offspring of law, and hence must conform to the end of 
law — the common good. This it is which marks the limits 
within which law shall define and protect a right, left by 
nature undefined and unprotected. No more just and fitting 
bounty can be offered for invention than protection, for a 
limited period, in the exclusive use of the thing invented. 

The second, like the first class of monopolies, are estab- 
lished by government for the stimulus and protection of 
industry. A railroad charter, judiciously granted, places in 
the hands of producers a fresh power; judiciously withheld, 
protects private property from the plunder of needless spec- 
ulation. To decide where the best interests of production 
lie, whether in the bestowing or withholding of a railroad, is 
manifestly the office of those whose duty it is to represent 
and protect those interests. It is evident that this class of 
monopolies are obnoxious when bestowed with partiality, 
and thus removed still more than the common good requires 
from general competition. 

Production demands that, as far as possible, the same con- 
ditions should be fixed for all, and that, within these condi- 
tions, the arena of competition should again be opened. 

Nature itself in some few instances seems to provide a 
monopoly. Some natural productions require such a! singu- 



246 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

larity of soil and situation, that all the land in a great 
country, which is fit for producing them, may not be sufficient 
to supply the effectual demand. The whole quantity 
brought to market, therefore, may be disposed of to those 
who are willing to give more than what is sufificient to pay 
the rent of the land which produced them, together with the 
wages of the labor, and the profits of the stock which were 
employed in preparing and bringing them to market, accord- 
ing to their natural rates. Such commodities may continue 
for whole centuries together to be sold at this high price ; 
and that part of it which resolves itself into the rent of land 
is in this case the part which is generally paid above its 
natural rate. The rent of the land which affords such 
singular and esteemed productions, like the rent of some 
vineyards in France of a peculiarly happy soil and situation, 
and the orange lands in Florida, bears no regular proportion 
to the rent of other equally fertile and equally well-cultivated 
land in its neighborhood. The wages of the labor and the 
profits of the stock employed in bringing such commodities 
to market, on the contrary, are seldom out of their natural 
proportion to those of the other employments of labor and 
stock in their neighborhood. 

The price of monopoly is, upon every occasion, the 
highest which can be got. The natural price, or the price of 
free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be 
taken, not upon every occasion, indeed, but for any consider- 
able time together. The one is upon every occasion the 
highest which can be squeezed out of the buyers, or which, 
it is supposed, they will consent to give : the other is the 
lowest which the sellers can commonly afford to take, and at 
the same time continue their business. 

A monopoly can only be justified on the ground of com- 
mon good. If it benefits the community, by rewarding for 
a limited period the party developing the industry, and 
who could not do it without some such provision, then it is 
right and may be tolerated. When a company of merchants 
undertake, at their own risk and expense, to establish a new 



MONOPOLY IN TRADE. 247 

trade with some remote and barbarous nation, it may not 
be unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint stock com- 
pany, and to grant them, in case of their success, a monop- 
oly of the trade for a certain number of years. It is the 
easiest and most natural way in which the state can recom- 
pense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive experi- 
ment, of which the public is afterward to reap the benefit. 
A temporory monopoly of this kind may be vindicated upon 
the same principles upon which a like monopoly of a new 
machine is granted to its inventor, and that of a new book 
to its author. But upon the expiration of the term, the 
monopoly ought certainly to terminate; the forts and gar- 
risons, if it was found necessary to establish any, to be taken 
into the hands of government, their value to be paid to the 
company, and the trade to be laid open to all the subjects of 
the state. By a perpetual monopoly, all the other subjects 
of the state are taxed very absurdly in two different ways : 
first, by the high price of goods, which, in the case of a free 
trade, they could buy much cheaper ; and, secondly, by their 
total exclusion from a branch of business which it might be 
both convenient and profitable for many of them to carry 
on. It is for the most worthless of all purposes, too, that 
they are taxed in this manner. It is merely to enable the 
company to support the negligence, profusion, and malver- 
sation of their own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom 
allows the dividend of the company to exceed the ordi- 
nary rate of profit in trades which are altogether free, and 
very frequently makes it fall even a good deal short of that 
rate. Without a monopoly, however, a joint stock company, 
it would appear from experience, cannot long carry on any 
branch of foreign trade. To buy in one market, in order to 
sell, with profit, in another, when there are many competitors 
in both; to watch over, not only the occasional variations 
in the demand, but the much greater and more frequent 
variations in the competition, or in the supply which that 
demand is likely to get from other people, and to suit 
with dexterity and judgment both the quantity and quality 



248 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of each assortment of goods to all these circumstances, is a 
species of warfare of which the operations are continually- 
changing, and which can scarce ever be conducted success- 
fully, without such an unremitting exertion of vigilance and 
attention, as cannot long be expected from the directors of 
a joint stock company. The East India Company, upon the 
redemption of their funds, and the expiration of their exclu- 
sive privilege, had a right, by act of parliament, to continue 
a corporation with a joint stock, and to trade in their cor- 
porate capacity to the East Indies in common with the rest 
of their fellow-subjects. 

Monopoly, besides, is a great enemy to good manage- 
ment, which can never be universally established but in 
consequence of that free and universal competition which 
forces everybody to have recourse to it for the sake of self- 
defense. It is not more than fifty years ago, that some of 
the counties in the neighborhood of London petitioned the 
parliament against the extension of the turnpike roads into 
remoter counties. Those remoter counties, they pretended, 
from the cheapness of labor, would be able to sell their grass 
and corn cheaper in the London market than themselves, 
and would thereby reduce their rents and ruin their cultiva- 
tion. Their rents, however, have risen and their cultivation 
has improved since that time. 

Political economy condemns all interference of legislation 
with rates of interest. Yet in almost every country there 
are legal rates of interest ; in this country each state fixes its 
own rate. A state legislature has as much right to enact a 
law declaring that a two-story frame house of a given size 
shall not rent for more than one hundred dollars a year, as 
to enact that money shall not bring more than seven per 
cent interest. A law declaring that a two-story frame house 
shall not rent for over one hundred dollars per year might 
temporarily and in the first instance benefit a part of the 
poorer people — for whose advantage demagogues would cry 
out for its adoption — but it would presently and perma- 
nently injure them ; for, first, it would at once put a stop to 



EVIL OF LAWS REGULATING mfEREST. 249 

the building of such houses, whereby mechanics would be 
thrown out of employment ; second, it would incommode the 
poorer people, by lessening the number of houses in pro- 
portion to occupants, and confining them, therefore, to 
narrower quarters; and third, capital, thus menaced and 
oppressed, would take alarm and be rapidly removed to 
countries where the people were not silly enough, and 
demagogues not powerful enough, to enforce such arbitrary 
regulations. And while not merely the capital which was 
originally intended to be invested in two-story frame houses, 
but much other capital would thus disappear, and all enter- 
prises supporting labor would be checked, the owners of 
two-story frame houses, who would actually lose, would in 
their turn be so much less able to employ labor. Thus, for 
a temporary gain of a small part of the people — the occu- 
piers of two-story frame houses already built — the whole 
laboring population, the mass of the people, would be seri- 
ously injured. 

Such a house, worth fifty or one hundred dollars per year 
in some locations for some people, might be worth one hun- 
dred and fifty, or even two hundred dollars, per year, to 
others in other locations ; and this house is the equivalent 
of so much money. If a legislature has no right in one case 
it has none in the other. In one section of a state m^oney 
may be worth seven per cent for a certain business; in 
another part of the same state a man in another business 
may be able to pay twelve per cent, and because he cannot 
get it for seven per cent he must suffer. Capital arbitrarily 
interfered with, seeks other uses and is carried ofif, and the 
laborer suffers in the end more than the capitalist. The 
natural effect of a usury law is to drive capital away. Eng- 
land has usury laws that are constantly compelling capital 
to seek investment in this country. It is safe to conjecture 
that there are two hundred millions of dollars of English 
capital in this country. The usury laws there make the legal 
rate about four per cent. The usury laws of New York 
have forced an immense amount of capital to the western 



250 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

states for investment. If there was no legislative restriction 
at home, the demand for money in other sections would act 
on the home market, and the balance of power in the money- 
market would be maintained. It is contrary to economics 
that capital should be worth six per cent in New York and 
twenty in Dakota. Even what is held at home feels the 
effect of usury laws. A part of this held at home is invested 
in securities, such as railway bonds, and thus also substan- 
tially goes to enterprises in other states; and for that which 
is actually lent out at home the borrower is obliged to pay a 
premium, or sum down on receiving the loan, which really 
raises the rate he pays, and raises it in a manner unprofitable 
to him, because it obliges him to pay a considerable sum 
down of which he entirely loses the use, and on which he 
gets no interest. Moreover, where usury laws prevail and 
are enforced, borrowers have generally to fee an agent or 
middle-man, who receives the premium, in order to save the 
lender harmless against the law. Thus, not only do usury 
laws make capital less abundant, and, of course, enterprises 
and wages less in the same measure, but the borrower him- 
self is usually injured by having to pay premiums graduated 
upon his individual necessities, and not upon the general 
demand for money. 

Many of the western states show the advantage, not 
merely to a country, but to the individual laboring man, of 
letting borrower and lender arrange their own terms. These 
states w^ere rapidly built up on borrowed capital, which they 
drew from the East by the ofTer of high rates of interest. 
Cultivating a rich soil, and settled on cheap lands, the 
western farmers could afford to pay high rates of interest, 
because their returns were very great. 

Take a laboring man, who, by saving his wages, was able 
to buy one hundred and sixty acres of congress land, but 
must borrow the means to plant his crop and harvest it. 
He could afford to pay a high rate of interest ; he could not 
afford to let his land lie idle. It is the poor man who is 



.r^.\ 



USELESSNESS OF USURY LAWS. 25 1 

benefited by the free power to borrow, of which a usury- 
law would deprive him. 

No law is more constantly violated than a usury law, and 
that too by the very class of persons against whom the laws 
are made. They catch the simple and the honest ; the 
shrewd and the dishonest readily escape. The few that are 
punished are angered by the injustice of the law; the many 
that escape laugh at its weakness. These laws aim to 
equalize the price of money, placing it at fixed rates in the 
hands of all; their effect is just the reverse of this. If 
money is plenty in any section, its value is lessened. If 
natural forces were left to themselves, this state of things 
would occasion a fall in the rate of interest, and, enticing 
enterprise by the easy terms of capital, would prepare the 
way for that accelerated exertion which restores price to its 
ordinary level. But a law, retaining the price of money at a 
rate beyond its true value, renders all borrowing a loss ; and 
money, cut off from its natural remedy of forcing a market 
by a fall of price, is left to accumulate in the hands of 
holders, and sinks much beyond the mark which the real 
state of things made necessary. 

Nor is such a law more fortunate in its efforts to give 
money, at all times, at an easy rate, to those who need it. 
If money is really worth something more than the law 
suffers to be received for it, the holder will struggle, as far 
as possible, to employ it himself, that he may realize this 
additional per cent, and a market already too dry will 
become dryer, till not a drop can be extorted, without the 
illegal proffer, not simply of the true value, but of this value 
as enhanced by the odium and additional risk of a surrepti- 
tious business. And all this supplaces those natural forces 
which, by the additional profits and free circulation of 
money, would have shortly restored it in amount, and hence 
reduced it in rate per cent to the general level. 

No law can reduce the common rate of interest below 
the lowest ordinary market rate at the time when that law 
is made. Notwithstanding the edict of 1766, by which the 



ii^:-: 



252 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

French king attempted to reduce the rate of interest from 
five to four per cent, money continued to be loaned in 
France at five per cent, the law being evaded in many different 
ways.' The simplest and best interest law is that which 
determines the rate of interest to be implied when no rate 
has been expressed. The next most simple law is that 
which leaves individuals to give and receive whatever rate 
they may agree upon, but refuses to collect, by legal process, 
any interest higher than a given rate. 

In connection with the effect of legislation on capital and 
labor, the question comes up of how far production should 
be protected by law from the competition of other countries. 
So far as the natural forces of commerce seem to direct, the 
course of action should be that of free exchange. Some 
forms of industry are made impossible save in certain climes 
and soils; others differ greatly in the facilities different 
places afford them, and even those processes of art capable 
of the most universal exercise are in their complete success 
intimately connected with natural characteristics and the 
advantages of position. These intrinsic differences, which 
cannot be overcome, and can only be partially removed, 
result in a great variety of productive power. If the highest 
aggregate of production is to be reached, these powers must 
be developed each according to its own highest suscepti- 
bility, and the distribution of the products of industry, now 
the most numerous possible, be left to a free exchange. To 
this action the desires of men tend. Each nation naturally 
chooses for itself that kind of industry which it deems most 
productive, and with the products so trafifics, as most fully 
to supply all its wants. Men do not accept the less in place 
of the greater gratification, and in this course of action lies 
their largest power of purchase and hence of gratification. 

Laws of protection, therefore, as superseding natural 
laws, alway. demand either specific reasons and special 
grounds of justification, marking and justifying them as 
exceptions, or a solid and sweeping proof, showing that a 
natural tendency, as natural law, is here at work, which is 



FREE MANUFACTURING. 253 

radically vicious, and requires to be systematically overcome. 
The aggregate amount of products, of utilities, which the 
industry of the world can at any time create, is the measure 
of the productive power of that time, of that which she can 
furnish for human enjoyment. Any scheme by which the 
common stock is lessened, weakens production, is unprofita- 
ble, and must result somewhere in a smaller amount of 
enjoyments. If any branch of manufacture, which it is 
desired to introduce into a country, is equally productive 
with other branches already introduced, it needs no protec- 
tion ; if it is not equally productive, then that labor which is 
withdrawn from more productive departments to be employed 
in this department, diminishes production elsewhere. 

This is as far in the discussion of the protection of law to 
industry as the relation of labor and capital carries us, leav- 
ing its further treatment to its proper place in the tariff 
question. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OBLIGATION OF THE RICH TO THE POOR. 

TO work, is one of the obligations of this Hfe ; and that 
the comforts of hfe are to be the fruits of toil, is one of 
the maxims of industry. If God has made labor necessary 
to our well-being, in our present life ; if he has set before us 
sufficient rewards to stimulate to labor; and if he has 
attached to idleness correspondent penalties, it is manifest 
that the intention of this constitution will not be accom- 
plished unless all these motives operate upon man. 

If this is a provision of our nature, it is binding upon 
every man in health. No man who has health and the use 
of his hands, can expect to exempt himself honorably from 
this arrangement. And one man is bound equally with 
another to work. Idleness, then, from the very logic of 
God's provision, is a crime against man, as it is a sin against 
God. It requires a certain amount of labor to provide sus- 
tenance for every man. If some men are idle, they cannot 
be sustained by the labor of their own hands. Scavengers 
upon the country's production, they eat the bread for which 
they do not toil, and are clothed with clothes upon which 
their own labor has no claim. 

If the comforts of life are the fruits of industry, they 
may be gathered by all who will labor at some industry. 
If some men will not labor when they can, they are not, by 
any economic or moral law, entitled to any fruit of other 
men's labor. 

If any idle man complain that this is hardship, he must 
mean that he has reference to his relation either to man or 
to God. If his relation to man, he is reminded that every- 
thing is the result of labor; if this be true, it is hardly a 
question worth raising: Who shall enjoy the result of labor; 

254 



THE DILEMMA OF IDLENESS. 255 

he who has labored or he who has not ? The man who will 
not labor has no right to deprive the man who is willing to 
labor of the fruits of his labor. If the idle man complain 
of this doctrine on the ground of his relation to God, and 
thinks that in this way it is a hardship to work, it is a com- 
plaint which he may settle with his God. A man who 
grumbles at the provisions of God has neither heart nor 
brain enough to make it worth while for man to attempt 
an adjustment of the trouble between himself and God. 
Since God has ordained labor as a producing power, we 
cannot help it, and the man who will not conform to it, has 
no right to complain against the man who does comply with 
God's plan. There are some persons who cannot labor. 
They are afflicted by sickness, accident, or the unhappy force 
of circumstances, into a condition where labor is impossible. 
These are to be dealt with by the moral doctrine of charity, 
rather than the economic one of labor. This class are the 
sick, the infirm, the aged, the helpless, the widow, the father- 
less and the orphan. When God has seen fit to take away 
the power to labor, he then calls upon us to bestow liberally, 
and he always teaches us that this mode of expenditure of 
our property is more pleasing to him than any other. Christ- 
ian benevolence can never do too much for this unfortu- 
nate class. The cloud is heavy upon them, and kind deeds 
and rich gifts ought to do all that is possible to lift it, 
and pour the sunshine of comfort and gladness on these 
distressed ones. 

But this economic principle has reference to men who 
are poor from indolence, and idle from choice. Provisions 
made to supply their wants, without requiring their previous 
labor, are wrong, on economic grounds. What right is there 
in demanding a man who labors to give a portion of the 
result of his labor to a man who will not labor? This is 
wrong altogether. To such provisions belong the poor 
laws, as they are established in England, and in some parts 
of our own country, and permanent endowments left to 
particular corporations for the maintenance of the simply 



256 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

indigent. Now such provisions are injurious for several 
reasons. And on these reasons political economy disclaims 
any wisdom in using the fruits of labor to sustain the idle ; 
and on the ground, too, that it is an economic waste. 

They are at variance with the fundamental law of govern- 
ment, that he who is able to labor, shall enjoy only that for 
which he has labored. If such be the law of God for us all, 
it is best for all that all should be subjected to it. If labor 
be a curse, it is unjust that one part, and that the industri- 
ous part, should suffer it all. If, as is the fact, it be a bless- 
ing, there is no reason why all should not equally enjoy its 
advantages. 

They remove from men the fear of want, one of the most 
natural and universal stimulants to labor. Hence, in just so 
far as this stimulus is removed, there will be, in a given 
community, less labor done; that is, less production. It 
would not require long, were this measure of relief given the 
idle, to stifle the industries of a whole country and produce 
a nation of paupers. 

By teaching a man to depend upon others, rather than 
upon himself, they destroy the healthful feeling of independ- 
ence. When this has once been impaired, and the confi- 
dence of man in the connection between labor and reward is 
destroyed, he becomes a pauper for life. It is in evidence, 
before the committee of the British House of Commons, 
that, after a family has once applied for assistance from the 
parish, it rarely ceases to apply regularly, and most fre- 
cjuently, in progress of time, for a larger and larger measure 
of assistance. This fact has equally been noticed by private 
gifts in this country, the more that is given this class, the 
more they demand, and to begging they add impudence. 

Hence such a system must tend greatly to increase the 
number of paupers. It is a discouragement to industry, 
and a bounty upon indolence. With what spirit will a poor 
man labor, and retrench to the utmost his expenses, when 
he knows he shall be taxed to support his next-door neigh- 
bor, who is as able to work as himself; but who is relieved 



SUPPORT OF THE UNPRODUCTIVE. 257 

from the necessity of a portion of labor, merely by applying 
to the overseer of the poor for aid. 

They are, in principle, destructive to the right of property, 
because they must proceed upon the concession, that the 
rich are under obligation to support the poor. If this be 
so ; if he who labors be under obligation to support him 
that labors not ; then the division of property and the right 
of property are at an end : for, he who labors has no better 
right to the result of his labor, than anyone else. 

Hence these provisions tend to insubordination. For, if 
the rich are under obligation to support the indolent poor, 
why not under obligation to support them better? Why 
not support them as well as themselves? The larger the 
provision there is made of this kind, the greater will be the 
liability of collision between the two classes. 

If all this be true, it is seen that these provisions to sup- 
port the idle poor, without compelling them to work, are 
dangerous to industry, are perilous to the highest interests 
of the very class they aim to relieve, as well as antagonistic 
to the arrangement of God. The only true method is to 
present the strongest possible inducement to industry. 

There should be no funds held in provision for the sup- 
port of the idle. If any such provision is known to exist, it 
will only encourage indolence, by creating the hope in an 
idle man that if he abstain from work until poverty pushes 
him into want, he will be supported by this fund. 

If a man be reduced by indolence or prodigality to such 
extreme want that he is in danger of perishing, he should be 
relieved through the medium of labor; that is, he should be 
furnished with work and rewarded with the proceeds. 
Should he refuse to accept any work, he should be put under 
some prison industrial discipline, where he would be com- 
pelled to work. If idleness is a crime, the sooner it is pun- 
ished as a crime, the better for the industrial interest of the 
country, as well as the moral welfare of the people. 

Those who are enabled only in part to earn the comforts 
of life, should be provided with labor that far, and then insist 
17 



258 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

on benevolence supplying the deficiency. This would pro- 
duce a better class of dependents. 

All provisions for the relief of the indolent poor should 
be so devised as not to interfere with the law of our nature, 
which necessitates labor. By so directing benevolent ener- 
gies the poor are better provided for ; they are happier them- 
selves, because complying with the law of their being; and 
a great and constantly increasing burden is removed from 
the community. It has been found that alms-houses con- 
ducted on this plan will support themselves ; and sometimes 
even yield a small surplus revenue. This surplus should 
always be given to the paupers, and should never be received 
by the public. The principle should be carried out that the 
laborer is to enjoy the result of his industry. 

For the same reason penitentiaries and state prisons 
should always be places of assiduous and productive labor. 
Idleness is a most prolific agent of crime. If the criminals 
could be accustomed to labor one half of this reformation 
would be effected. 

Besides, by this means, a great diminution could be 
effected in the expense to the community. There can be 
no reason why a hundred able-bodied men, and such are 
generally the tenants of our prisons, should not both support 
themselves and pay for the superintendence necessary to 
their labor. In a well-regulated prison, they will always do 
this. There must always be something deeply culpable in 
the arrangements of such an institution where there is not 
this result. 

And thus, where a society is so organized that every man 
is left to suffer the results of idleness, that is, where labor is 
made necessary to the acquisition of everything desirable, 
and where the results of that labor are most perfectly 
secure to the laborer, there will exist the greatest stimulus 
to labor, and, of course, production will be most rapidly 
augmented. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



CHILDREN S LABOR. 



AS the United States become more and more a manu- 
facturing country, the question of children's labor will 
become a serious problem in political economy, as well as in 
morals. As manufacturing is not yet largely developed in 
many sections, it has not been much studied, but where it is 
demanding attention it shows a troubled look, without a 
single softening line. Massachusetts is largely a manufact- 
uring section, and the factory towns are beginning to reveal 
some sad economic and moral facts. The state has, in view 
of these facts, passed some excellent laws to the effect that : 

" No child under ten years of age shall be employed in 
any manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile establishment 
in this commonwealth. 

"No child under fourteen shall be so employed except 
during the vacations of the pubHc schools, unless during the 
year next preceding such employment he has attended some 
public or private school at least twenty weeks; nor shall 
such employment continue unless such child shall attend 
school twenty weeks in each and every year following; 
and no child shall be so employed who does not present a 
certificate, made by or under the school committee, of his 
compliance with the requirements of this act. 

" Every owner, superintendent, or overseer who employs 
•or permits to be employed any child in violation of this act, 
and every parent or guardian who permits such employment, 
shall forfeit a sum of not less than twenty nor more than 
fifty dollars for the use of the public schools." 

From these carefully worded statutes it would seem as if 
every precaution had been taken by the state of Massachu- 
setts to prevent the overworking of children in the common- 

259 



26o THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

wealth and the neglect of their proper schooling. It is one 
thing, however, to make wise laws, and quite another to 
enforce them, as may be seen from the following statistics. 

During the past, year some hundred alid sixty factories in 
the state, that have been inspected, give an average of only 
two per cent, where strict compliance was found with the 
enactments quoted above. In one factory, the facts discov- 
ered by the inspector showed that not one-half the children 
employed were of the legal age. Further investigations 
proved that many at that time, of legal age, had been work- 
ing many years without the prescribed absence of five 
months for the legal amount of schooling. In some factories 
many girls of fourteen were found who could neither read 
nor write. 

Systematic investigation has shown that of the thirteen 
thousand children employed in various factories throughout 
the state in 1878, only four thousand five hundred and 
seventy-five I'eceived the legal amount of schooling; and 
that among the two hundred and eighty-two thousand four 
hundred and eighty-five children in Massachusetts between 
the ages of five and fifteen there are no less than twenty-five 
thousand children who never have been present in either our 
public or private schools. 

There seems to be a growing disposition on the part of 
parents to put their children to work before they are of legal 
age, and to avoid sending them to school the length of time 
required by law. Scarcely a day passes but mothers come 
to the mills and beg to have their children employed. It is 
difificult for managers to comply with the law, as parents 
give false statements regarding the ages of their children. 

Something is wrong somewhere when children under 
eleven years of age are among the bread winners of the state, 
and when children between ten and fifteen produce twenty- 
four per cent of the income of the factory people. It is 
hardly possible for even a strong able-bodied man to earn 
enough to support his family and keep his children in school 
until they are fifteen. With the present relation of wages to 



CHILD LABOR IN ENGLAND. 261 

the cost of living in Massachusetts, it seems that a laboring 
man with a family cannot keep out of debt and keep his 
children in school with a yearly income of less than six 
hundred dollars. They dress shabbily, occupy tenements, 
and are in a wretched condition generally. 

From the present condition of labor and living in Massa- 
chusetts, the majority of workingmen's families, without the 
wages of the children, would be in poverty or debt. In 
England, the over-working and under-schooling of minors 
is now subject to heavy penalties ; but past generations of 
factory children have already given rise to an almost distinct 
class of English working people — pale, sallow, and stunted 
both in physical and mental growth. 

How long will it be before a deteriorated race like the 
Stockinger, Leicester and Manchester spinners, springs up 
on our New England soil? 

Present legislative steps in England, will in due course of 
time, undoubtedly, lead to the entire prohibition of child 
labor throughout Gr-eat Britain, and provide compulsorily for 
the education of minors ; the same humanitarian and politic 
movement is apparent in every European country. 

In many of the Massachusetts manufacturing towns, it is 
true, mill schools, half-time and evening schools, are provided 
for the little unfortunates doomed to labor; but class schools 
of any description are mischievous to the best interests of a 
democracy. Doubtless any instantaneous elimination of 
child labor from a community would for a time increase the 
amount of suffering — that suffering of which it really has 
been a primal cause. But the ultimate result of child 
lahot upon the interests of the parent and the manufacturer 
will be most disastrous. 

We will suppose that the owner of a certain factory sud- 
denly discovers that he may lessen the cost of production, 
and thereby gain advantage in trade, by employing young 
persons of fifteen, or sixteen, where he has heretofore 
employed adults. He can hire them for one half the sum he 
has been accustomed to pay his men, and more applicants 



262 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

are found than he can supply with work. Other manufact- 
urers follow the example. The demand is increased for 
minors, who are willing to work for half the wages a laboring 
man with a family to support absolutely requires. 

The competition increases ; large numbers of adult work- 
men are thrown out of employment, and since they must 
have some means of subsistence they say to the manufact- 
urers: "If you cannot give us twice as much as you give 
these boys, we will work for a little less than we have done ; 
but surely our skilled labor is worth more to you than the 
work of mere children." So a compromise is made: part of 
the men are retained at lower wages, and they are comforted 
by the thought that their children's earnings will make up 
the balance needed to eke out a scanty living. The evil 
results of this would be enormous. 

The economic, as well as moral interest of any com- 
munity, demand an utter destruction of children's labor in 
factories. The laborers will suffer, production will be poorly 
done, the manufacturers will have a pauper community to 
support, and the commonwealth will have an inferior class 
of people in the course of two or three generations inferior 
in body, mind, and the moral responsibility belonging to a 
safe citizenship. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CONSUMPTION. 

ALL the processes of production are represented in the 
consumption of products, which is the ultimate end of 
production. This is the legitimate use of wealth. Wealth 
not put to the actual work of producing some benefit for 
man is misused. In the process of gratifying human desires 
all production is consumed. Consumption is thus the coun- 
terpart of production, and in its widest meaning is simply 
the destruction of value. By this is not meant the annihila- 
tion of material subtances, but the extinction of particular 
forms of utility. It is in the nature of things an established 
law that we can neither create new values nor gratify our 
desires except by the destruction of existing values. If gun- 
powder be burned, if bread be eaten, if a tree be felled, the 
particular utility which each originally possessed, is destroyed 
forever. And this destruction of value takes place, alto- 
gether independently Of the result which may in different 
cases ensue ; because that destruction is as truly effected in 
one case as in another. A load of wood when it has been 
burned, as truly loses its utility, that is, its power of creat- 
ing heat, when it is destroyed in a conflagration, as when it 
is consumed under a steam boiler, or in a fire place, though 
the result in the two cases may be very dissimilar. If bread 
be thrown into the sea its utility is destroyed just as much 
as if it were eaten ; though, in the one case, there is no result 
from the consumption and in the other it is the means of 
creating the vigor necessary to labor. 

An act of consumption does not destroy all the utilities 
of an article. The cloth of a worn-out mantle may have 
utility as material for the paper mill. The ashes of burned 
wood may be utilized in producing alkali for the manufacture 

263 



264 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of soap, and a wheel, worn out in the machinery, may be 
recast again. A pair of rubber shoes may be worn out, and 
yet possess a valuable utility to the manufacturer of India- 
rubber cloth. Hence economy in consumption requires an 
exhaustion of all the values contained in any product before 
it is thrown away as entirely worthless.' For the want of 
this care, millions of property are annually wasted. The 
difference between the cost of two establishments, in the one 
of which every utility of every substance is consumed, and 
in the other of which only the first utility is consumed, is 
frequently as great as the net profits realized in the ordinary 
employments of industry. 

There are several ways in which values are destroyed by 
the extinction of utility, all of which come within the range 
of our broad definition of consumption. Sound economy 
must make account of all. Consumption is involuntary or 
voluntary, as effected with or without the direct design of 
man. In either case, if there be consumption, there is value 
destroyed. The difference is, that in the one case there is a 
profitable result expected ; in the other case there is none. 
If a loaf of bread become moldy by neglect, its value is 
destroyed just as much as though it were eaten. The differ- 
ence is, that in the one case the loss is total ; in the other 
ease, the consumption of value creates a power to labor, 
which is of more value than the loaf itself. If, for the want 
of a fender, the fire fall out of the fire-place and burn the 
carpet, the carpet is as effectually consumed as if it were 
worn out by use. The difference is, that in the one case 
it affords a substantial convenience, and in the other it 
affords none. If, by forgetfulness or neglect, a gate is left 
unlatched, and it is beaten in pieces by the wind, it is as 
effectually consumed as by the wear of several years. The 
difference is, that in the one case it answers for a long time 
the purpose of inclosure, in the other case it answers no 
purpose at all. Hence, the necessity of care and vigilance 
in all the business of life. Almost everything is constantly 
tending to consumption. Vegetable matter decays ; animal 



FORMS OF CONSUMPTION. 265 

matter putrefies ; most of the metals may be corroded ; 
almost all our possessions are liable to accidental destruction 
from fire or flood, from the frosts of winter or the heat of 
summer. Hence, without our continual care, a continual 
process of consumption will be going on by which cur 
capital will be diminished. 

Involuntary consumption may be divided into natural 
consumption and accidental consumption. Natural con- 
sumption has to do with the process of destruction effected 
by nature. In nature all things tend to decay.. Wood and 
vegetables rot, iron rusts, linen goods become mildewed, 
woolen goods and furs are moth-eaten, grain in store heats 
and spoils, flour turns sour, and all things in use, even gold 
and silver, insensibly wear away. To this head is to be 
referred also the destruction caused by all kinds of insects. 
It is reported that the destruction caused by rats and insects 
in England amounts to ten million pounds annually. Natu- 
ral consumption varies with the climate of different sections. 
It appears in one form under the influence of heat, in 
another under the power of cold. It is most general and 
most rapid in tropical countries. It is most within the con- 
trol of man in the temperate zone, but no part of the world 
and no form of wealth is wholly exempt from this liability. 

This kind of consumption is generally pure loss, and a 
sound economy will use all possible prudence and call for 
the most diligent labor to protect it as much as possible. 
Yet, after the best that man can do, there will be much of 
waste and loss from this cause, which must be carefully 
taken into account in the estimate of wealth and in plans for 
its increase. 

Accidental consumption is destruction of values caused 
by accident. The great Chicago fire is an instance of this 
kind of consumption. And to this class may be put all 
those sudden calamities which carry sweeping destruction 
before them, proceeding sometimes from the carelessness of 
men, sometimes from the unforeseen and inexplicable action 
of nature's forces. Such are great fires, railway-collisions. 



266 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

steamboat -explosions, shipwrecks, floods and tornadoes, 
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, avalanches and land- 
slides. The annual destruction of values in these ways is 
very great. Wealth in every form and in all countries is 
more or less liable to be thus suddenly consumed. No 
human art or foresight is competent to prevent it altogether. 

Notional consumption is something spoken of as that 
consumption which is the result of the mere caprice, notion 
or fashion of a people. The high, stiff, sharp-crowned hat is 
in style a certain season. Twenty million hats of this 
style are manufactured. The second season following, the 
style is entirely abandoned; but only fifteen millions have 
been sold. The five millions are lying with the producers 
or the wholesale and the retail houses. They are worthless 
as hats. Fashion has changed the style throughout the 
several countries where the trade can carry the hat, and the 
five million unsold hats are without value, merely from the 
whim of a notion, though they may have represented ten 
million dollars. This kind of consumption, heavier in this 
country than Germany, heavier in France than here, is almost 
a positive loss of the labor and capital spent in production. 
And the probable amount of notional consumption is esti- 
mated by the manufacturer and dealer, and its cost added to 
the value of that portion actually consumed. So that the 
fifteen million hats which were bought, sold for probably 
fifty cents a hat more, merely to cover the cost of the five 
millions which would not be sold. 

Voluntary consumption is that in which men deliberately 
destroy values for a special purpose. There are two objects 
for which men, of their own purpose, destroy existing values. 
The one is the increase of wealth by reproduction ; the other 
is immediate gratification. Reproductive consumption 
demands care, skill and labor, while consumption for gratifica- 
tion ordinarily requires neither. Hence the former is more 
or less irksome ; the latter is a present joy. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION. 

PRODUCTIVE consumption is that which every person 
effects who carries on the operations of production. 
The farmer, the mechanic and the manufacturer are all con- 
sumers, and are such in a greater or less degree, according 
to the extent of their production. 

Productive consumption requires both skill and labor, and 
no less capital. It requires skill and labor to sow seed, as 
well as money to provide that seed. It requires skill and 
labor to turn iron into a machine, as well as the capital 
invested in that iron. 

Productive consumption is commonly attended with no 
immediate gratification. The farmer may prefer agriculture 
to manufactures, but he would not commonly labor for the 
mere pleasure of the operation. Could he secure his crop 
with half the present labor, or with no labor at all, he would 
doubtless do so. The case is the same with the manufact- 
urer or any other producer. 

Economy suggests the rule that the destruction of value 
for the desired product be always the least which will meet 
the necessity. 

Consumption is either of capital or of labor. 

The consumption of capital used to produce a given 
result should be as small as possible. The ordinary maxim 
is as true as it is common: "A penny saved is a penny 
earned." In estimating the profits of any operation, it is 
manifest that he who has produced a value worth one hun- 
dred dollars, at an expense of sixty dollars, reaps a profit of 
twenty dollars more than he who has produced the same 
value at an expense of eighty dollars. The farmer who 
saves half a bushel of seed in sowing an acre enriches himself 

267 



268 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

as much as though he had reaped half a bushel more per 
acre. In China sowing is always done by drilling, and it is 
estimated that the saving throughout the whole empire, 
from this improvement, is enough to feed the whole popu- 
lation of great Britain. The same principles hold with 
mechanics, manufacturers and all classes of consumers. 
From want of care a much larger amount of value is con- 
sumed than is necessary for the production required. The 
amount of capital should be no greater than is necessary. It 
is unwise to employ a steam engine of a hundred horse- 
power when half that amount of power is needed. 

The kind of capital employed should be of the lowest 
value that will accomplish the purpose. Straw is a cheaper 
material for paper than rags. Every producer should make 
it a careful study to ascertain in what manner he may carry 
on his production with the least costly production. Chem- 
istry applied to the arts has introduced cheaper dye-stuffs for 
prints. Research and invention are thus constantly econo- 
mizing the cost of production, and eveiy manufacturer needs 
to avail himself of the fruits of such' study. 

Every utility of the substances employed in production 
should be exhausted. There are fragments which may be 
sav^ed. Thus in the coining of money, the filings and 
sweepings of the work-room yield a considerable value. 
There are secondary utilities which may be developed, as 
the refuse of a large slaughter-house furnishes materials for 
soap, candles and glue. Formerly the seed of the cotton 
crop was mostly thrown away ; now from the kernel large 
quantities of valuable oil are extracted ; the oil-cake furnishes 
excellent food for cattle and sheep ; the hull of the seed 
yields soluble phosphate of lime and potash for manure, and 
the spent hull makes a white and clean paper-stock. By 
realizing these new values the cost of producing cotton-fibre 
is reduced. This principle is well illustrated in the various 
uses to which the horns of cattle are applied. The horn 
consists of two parts, an outward horny case, and an inward 
conical-shaped substance. The first process consists in sep- 



UTILITIES OF CATTLE HORNS. 269 

arating these two parts, by means of a blow against a block 
of wood. The horny exterior is then cut into three portions 
by means of a frame saw. 

The lowest of them, next to the root of the horn, after 
undergoing several processes by which it is rendered flat, is 
made into combs. 

The middle of the horn, after being flattened by heat, and 
its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin layers and 
forms a substitute for glass in lanterns. 

The tip of the horn, is used by the makers of knife 
handles, and of the tops of whips. 

The interior or core of the horn is boiled down in water. 
A large quantity of fat rises to the surface. This is sold to 
the makers of yellow soap. 

The liquid itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased 
by the cloth dressers for stiffening. 

The bony substance which remains behind is sent to the 
mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for 
manure. 

The clippings and shavings are also sold to the farmers 
for manure, or are used in small quantities for the manu- 
facture of toys. 

A chief advantage of production on a large scale is, that 
it warrants different operations for developing these minor 
utilities, which in small establishments are wasted ; and it is 
evident that if any part of this material were wasted the cost 
of the manufactured articles would be higher, and the gain 
of the producer less. 

For economic consumption, all the values must be con- 
sumed in the most profitable manner. It frequently happens 
that a producer wants but one value from a substance for his 
particular purpose, while another, and an important value, 
remains unappropriated. It is always a matter of impor- 
tance to employ in the best manner every value which a sub- 
stance is known to possess. Thus, after we have derived from 
wood all the heat which it can evolve, it leaves ashes, which 
possess an important value. After the oil has been pressed 



2/0 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

from flax seed, the residuum is a valuable food for cattle. The 
employment of this utility, of course, lessens the price of oil, 
and increases the demand for it. Hence we see the supe- 
riority of the economy of large establishments to that of 
smaller ones. A large manufacturing establishment can 
carry on several distinct operations for the sake of using 
these secondary utilities. In a small one this would be 
impossible, and much must in consequence be wasted. 

In the consumption of labor in production there should 
be just as much labor employed as may be necessary to 
accomplish the intended result. There should never be 
more labor engaged in any piece of industry than is just 
able to do the work well and rapidly. If there is more than 
is wanted, it generates idleness and negligence. One super- 
numerary laborer is not only useless himself, but he gene- 
rally requires the time of two or three others to bear him 
company in idleness. 

There should not be employed less labor than is wanted. 
This produces confusion, and destroys the advantages of 
correct division of labor. It saves nothing to employ one 
person less than is necessary in an establishment. 

The grade of labor should be carefully adapted to different 
operations. All the many advantages of division of labor 
come into account here. It is wise, when great skill is 
required, to employ a man of skill at high wages. It is 
unwise to put such a laborer upon work which can be as 
well done by an unskilled workman at less wages. 

The labor paid for should be all performed. To secure 
this, efficient superintendence is all-essential. "Time is 
money," says the maxim. Certainly it is money to him who 
pays money for it. Every hour paid for, that is spent in 
idleness, is so much unprofitable consumption, — an absolute 
loss. Good superintendence often makes all the difference 
between success and failure in the conduct of business. 

There is much waste of labor, which arises from various 
causes. One cause is that of poor superintendence. If 
twenty men are employed by the day to perform a piece of 



HOW LABOR IS WASTED. 2/1 

labor, it will be found that considerable time is wasted in 
sauntering and story-telling, which might be prevented by 
an efficient superintendent who will carefully economize the 
management so as to avoid opportunity for this waste of 
time. Another cause for wasted time is irregularity. When 
tools are out of place or dull, materials unsuitable, by which 
carelessness laborers stand around idle to wait for the 
arrangement of these things, they, by habit, become irregular, 
and few large establishments are there but the time wasted 
in this way might, by economy in this direction, produce 
largely increased values. 

Bad labor is a cause for much waste in labor. A break 
in a dam, or in a fence, by being fixed well, in time may 
save a dam washed out, or a crop destroyed by cattle. Say, 
in his Political Economy, tells a story this wise : " I remember 
being once a witness of the numberless misfortunes which a 
neglectful housekeeping entails. For the want of a small 
latch, the gate of the poultry yard was forever open, there 
being no means of closing it externally, arid many of the 
poultry were lost in consequence. One day, a fine young 
porker made his escape into the woods, and the whole 
family, gardener, cook and milk-maid, presently turned out 
in quest of the fugitive. The gardener, in leaping a ditch, 
got a sprain that confined him to his bed for a fortnight. 
The cook found the linen burnt that she had left at the fire 
to dry. The milk-maid forgot, in her haste, to tie up the 
cattle in the cow house, and one of the loose cows broke the 
leg of a colt, that was kept in the same shed. The linen 
burnt, and the gardener's work lost, were worth twenty 
crowns, and the colt as much more, so that forty crowns 
were, in a few minutes, lost, for want of a latch that would 
not have cost more than a few sous." 

From these considerations on the consumption of capital 
and labor for the purpose of production, several things are 
evident. The economical consumption of labor and capital 
depends chiefly on the careful study and accurate knowledge 
of the whole process of production. It is further evident 



2/2 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

that restrictions on capital will retard the economic con- 
sumption of capital and labor in production. Waste of 
labor in any form will prevent close consumption of labor. 
Economy in capital and labor promotes an entire community, 
by saving from destruction much that may be made of utility 
in the work of satisfying human wants. 

If a man economize labor and capital, he increases his 
own wealth, and he also rescues as much as he saves, from 
actual destruction. The whole of this amount may go to 
the further increase of production, or to the satisfying of 
human wants. The more he produces, the greater is his 
wealth ; and the greater is the value which is created for the 
good of the whole community. Hence, we see, that he who 
is honestly promoting Kis own welfare, is also promoting the 
welfare of the whole society of which he is a member. 



CHAPTER XXL 

CONSUMPTION FOR GRATIFICATION. 

THIS kind of consumption would be impossible if it 
were not for the consumption used in production. An 
article of food or clothing, or an instrument of pleasure, must 
be made before it can be enjoyed, and in its manufacture 
there is the consumption of both capital and labor. The 
consumption for gratification does not include a man's entire 
production, but only the excess of production over the 
amount needed for the work of production. 

There are several kinds of gratification for which the 
products of labor and capital may be consumed. The first 
and most important are those gratifications needed for the 
preservation of life, health and comfort. All men require 
food, clothing and shelter. Hence these are called necessi- 
ties. The term is, however, used relatively, not absolutely. 
The measure and quality of goods needed in this form varies 
with circumstances, such as climate, grade of civilization, 
occupation, and social position, and also with the taste, tem- 
perament and education of different persons. A bamboo 
hut, a measure of rice and a few yards of cotton cloth, sufifice 
for the pariah of India. A respectable citizen of our country 
requires values a hundred-fold greater. But economy teaches 
that these necessities be secured at the lowest possible 
expenditure for the accomplishment of any given plan of 
living. No more should be purchased of any article than is 
needed. The articles ordinarily consumed in a family, are 
rapidly destructible. If more be purchased than is wanted, 
it is liable to become useless, and, in this case, the loss of 
this excess is total. 

By having a superabundance of anything consumable, it 
becomes, in the eyes of those who use it, less valuable, and 
18 273 



274 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

is used less carefully. And, if neither of these results be 
experienced, if an article be purchased a year before it is 
wanted, the purchaser loses the interest, for a year, of the 
money expended. Hence it is generally as economical to 
purchase at retail as at wholesale. It is never good policy 
to purchase anything because it is cheap. If a man need 
anything, its cheapness is a reason why he should buy it ; 
but if he do not want it, its cheapness is no reason at all. 
A man may buy stones very cheap, but it is doubtful whether 
he would be either enriched or made happier by the pur- 
chase. Many a garret is filled with great bargains, which 
were purchased because they were cheap, and then laid 
away to rot. 

The enjoyments of life depend to some little degree on 
the gratifications which delight the senses and tastes. The, 
mere sustaining of existence comes far short of filling out 
the measure of men's capacity for enjoyment. Such things 
as delicacies for the table, beautiful dress and equipage, 
ornamental furniture, the products of fine art in painting, 
statuary, architecture and music, public exhibitions to please 
the eye and the ear, yield rich gratifications to people of 
taste. The desires which run in this direction are natural. 
Their gratification, within due limits, is refining and elevat- 
ing. Means for these gratifications may be drawn from the 
resources of nature, and quite generally distributed. It is 
morally and socially healthful for people of every class to 
enjoy some things which they esteem luxuries. At the same 
time there are in this direction dangers to be carefully 
avoided. Appetites unnaturally formed and unduly pam- 
pered may gain the mastery, and lead to indulgences which 
produce misery instead of happiness. 

Consumption for intellectual and moral pleasures is the 
most nobly used. We consume money for this purpose in 
the purchase of books and philosophical instruments, and we 
consume time in the study and use of them. We here 
enjoy the pleasure of intellectual exercise, and also obtain 



MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CULTURE. 275 

that knowledge by which we are enabled to perform the 
duties of life with greater success. 

Moral gratification should never be stinted in the culture 
of a good conscience toward God and toward men, and in the 
exercise of benevolence. To secure these, some value must be 
consumed in the support of religious institutions and in gifts 
of charity. By such expenditures the noblest capacities of our 
nature are drawn out, and for the expenditure there is 
returned the richest satisfaction — a satisfaction not limited 
to the moment, but abiding for the lifetime of the soul. 

The consumption of values in moral and mental pleasures 
is not as heavy as it should be. The time spent in moral 
and intellectual cultivation is no more expensive than to 
spend it thoughtlessly and after vanities, while the reward is 
quite different. The time consumed in thoughtless dissipa- 
tion, if employed in moral culture, would effect great changes 
in our habits and characters. The pleasures of benevolence, 
so far as pecuniary consumption is concerned, are less expen- 
sive than those of the senses. Were the means lavished in 
thoughtless caprice, squandered in drinking or wasted on the 
forms of fashion, to be reserved for charity, a wide and new 
world of comfort, elevation and happiness would be opened 
both to the giver and the receiver. 

Great intellectual culture is within the reach of all classes 
at a small consumption. The useless articles by which a 
parlor is over-decorated, frequently represent an expense 
greater than would be necessary to purchase a good library. 
The sums of money annually spent by most families to 
satisfy the vanities of fashion, would furnish them with more 
reading than they could digest, and when several classes of 
enjoyments are placed before a man, and when one may be 
procured at so much less expense than the others, it is worth 
while to earnestly inquire if the cheaper will not afford him 
more true pleasure than the others. There is something 
wanting when the dwelling of a moral and intelligent being 
reminds us of everything else than that he is either moral or 
intellectual. 



276 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

This i^ a question with which political economy may- 
wrestle, as moral and intellectual pleasures actually tend to 
the wealth of a community. The exercise of benevolence 
has several important economical tendencies. For instance, 
it tends directly to cultivate the habits of self-denial and self- 
government, which are so essential both to industry and 
frugality. Sensual self-indulgence temds directly to produce 
both indolence and capricious and reckless expenditure. 

Again. The habit of benevolence tends to moderate and 
correct that intense love of gain, which is so frequently the 
cause of ruin to enterprising men. In the management of 
any hazardous business, he will be the most likely to succeed 
who looks with entire coolness on the chances of loss and 
gain. The too eager, governed by their imagination, rush 
into needless danger. The too cautious allow a fair prospect 
of advantage to pass by unimproved. The one is as liable 
to fail as the other; but he who, by the practice of benevo- 
lence, has learned a more accurate estimate of the blessings 
of wealth, will, more probably than either, judge correctly. 
The miser and the sensualist will fall into opposite extremes, 
one upon each side of him. 

Besides, the social benefits of benevolence are incalcula- 
ble. It unites together the various classes of men, by the 
strong ties of affection and gratitude. By bringing all 
classes of men more directly under the view of the whole 
mass of society, social responsibility is increased, and the 
encouragements to virtue and the restraints upon vice are 
strengthened. When the rich are hard-hearted and luxuri- 
ous, the poor are disaffected, anti-social, and destructive. In 
so far as benevolence, therefore, tends to the improvement 
of the social dispositions of men, it may lay claim to great 
economical advantages. 

And the same is true of intellectual pleasures. A man 
cannot enjoy these without improving his mind, and render- 
ing it a more valuable instrument both for the production of 
his future happiness, and the accumulation of wealth. 
Knowledge is power, in what sphere of life soever it be 



DOMESTIC EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. 277 

exerted. The gratification of the senses enervates the body, 
enfeebles the mind, and tends to render intellectual exercise 
unpleasant, and to unfit us for any important or highly 
responsible exertion. 

The extent to which consumption may be exercised on 
moral and intellectual pleasures will depend much on the 
domestic arrangements of each family. As there is economy 
in the household expenditures, there will be left a portion 
which may be expended on moral, social and intellectual 
enjoyments. And as the domestic department of consump- 
tion in general devolves upon the mistress of the family, we 
see how important to the execution of it with success, must 
be vigilance, care, intelligence and industry. The husband, 
by the employment of capital, labor and skill, in productive 
consumption, secures an annual revenue for the purpose of 
consumption in the various means of gratification, whether 
necessary or superfluous. The expenditure of this annual 
revenue, or the making of those arrangements which govern 
the expenditure, generally devolves upon the wife. If that 
expenditure be made without economy, either the gratifica- 
tions which it might procure are never enjoyed, and, by all 
the consumption, neither comfort nor pleasure is obtained ; 
or else, if the gratification sought for be obtained, it is 
obtained at an expense absolutely ruinous. Hence it will 
be seen that the physical comfort, as well as the means of 
happiness of both parties, depends more on the domestic 
education of the female sex than is ordinarily supposed. 
Afifection will rarely exist in the atmosphere of self-inflicted 
poverty. No man can respect a woman by whose caprice 
and ignorance of her appropriate duties he is plunged into 
disgraceful bankruptcy, and wedded to hopeless penury. 
Nor let it be supposed that no talent is requisite skillfully to 
superintend a household. It requires, at least, as much 
ability to direct, with skill, and on principle, the affairs of a 
domestic establishment, as to select a ribbon or dance a 
minuet, to finger a piano, or to embroider a fire screen. 

There is a close reciprocal relation between production 



2/8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

and consumption for gratification. All goods and articles 
are manufactured with reference to their consumption. No 
article would be produced but for the belief that it would be 
consumed. Material welfare consists in ample production 
with an equal consumption. 

Extreme frugality would leave goods in the hands of 
producers uncalled for, and at once throw laborers out of 
employment and out of the means of living. Extreme lux- 
ury would consume resources and hinder the accumulation 
of capital necessary for production. The problem is to find 
the golden mean which shall keep the balance that sustains 
prosperous industry, by a steady demand for its products. 
The problem can be solved only as each man studies it, and 
finds the solution for himself, by using his means for health- 
ful gratifications, at the same time limiting his gratifications 
by a due regard to his means. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PUBLIC CONSUMPTION. 

BY force of the social instinct mankind is brought 
together in communities. This gives rise to many com- 
mon wants, which are provided for by money drawn from the 
entire people by taxation. These common wants can only 
be met by the destruction of existing values, the same as 
individual consumption. These values, which are destroyed 
by public consumption, are taken from the private citizen. 
The government has nothing to expend but what is con- 
tributed by its tax-paying citizens. When a given sum is to 
be raised for the accomplishment of any object, it is, by 
some mode of assessment, distributed among the various 
individuals of the community, and every one is obliged to 
pay the proportion with which he is charged. The sum 
thus collected is then, for the accomplishment of particular 
purposes, consumed by the agents into whose hands it is 
delivered. 

Taxes are either direct or indirect, and it may be said 
that direct taxes are no heavier to bear than indirect. 
Direct taxes are those laid on land and on personal prop- 
erty in actual use, on incomes and on polls. All state and 
local revenues are raised by direct taxation. Indirect taxes 
are duties on goods imported, or on goods manufactured for 
sale at home. In the last case they are called excises. But 
the merchant who imports goods, or the manufacturer at 
home, does not submit to the loss of the amount of the tax 
he pays. He makes it in either case a charge upon his 
goods, and adds it to their price. Not only that, but as he 
must take the risk of loss by fire or other accident, or by 
falling prices, or a lack of market after the duty or excise 
is paid, he adds a percentage to the price to cover these 

279 



280 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

risks, for he knows that the government will not return him 
the taxes he has paid, no matter if he should entirely lose 
his goods the day after he paid the tax or duty upon them. 
Hence indirect taxes are less economical than direct 
taxes ; they inflict more loss upon the consumer compared 
with the amount of revenue raised. But because indirect 
taxes are paid by the consumer with other payments, in 
small and often insignificant amounts at a time, and without 
the intervention of that universally hated personage, the tax- 
gatherer, this mode of raising revenue has always been a 
favorite with the people ; and because an indirect tax is thus 
collected with less friction, and can be increased secretly, as 
it were, and without its effect being so immediately and 
plainly felt by each individual tax-payer, it has always been 
a favorite with governments. The revenues of the general 
goverement are almost entirely derived from indirect taxes! 
As these indirect taxes are difficult of adjustment, and com- 
plicated, their arrangement almost always gives opportunity 
to selfish and scheming persons to impose upon congress, 
and get it to favor their pursuits either by exemption where 
a tax should be laid, or by laying a tax where the general 
interest requires none ; or, finally, by inducing congress to 
change the duty or tax, either raising or lowering it, by 
which change manufacturers or importers or speculators 
may make extraordinary gains. Thus a tax system, whose 
only proper end is to raise a certain amount of revenue for 
the government, is often misapplied to providing a bounty 
for certain favored pursuits, or enabling influential specula- 
tors to make unjust gains at the cost of the mass of the 
people. In spite of these abuses, however, it is probable that 
indirect taxation will remain a favorite means of raising 
revenue in all countries for a long time to come ; and the citi- 
zens have no remedy against its abuse, except to insist upon 
the sound and indisputable principle that the sole proper 
purpose of taxation is to raise the revenue required by the 
government ; and to hold legislators to a strict account in 
this matter. 



DIFFERENT METHODS OF TAXATION. 28 1 

Nations have resorted to peculiar methods of taxation. 
In the territory of Venice all the arable lands which are 
given in lease to the farmers, are taxed at a tenth of the rent. 
The leases are recorded in a public register, which is kept by 
the officers of revenue in each province or district. When 
the proprietor cultivates his own lands, they are valued 
according to an equitable estimation, and he is allowed a 
deduction of one fifth of the tax, so that for such lands he 
pays only eight instead of ten per cent of the supposed rent. 
In Hamburg every inhabitant is obliged to pay to the state 
one fourth per cent of all that he possesses; and as the 
wealth of the people of Hamburg consists principally in 
stock, this tax may be considered as a tax upon stock. 
Every man assesses himself, and in the presence of the mag- 
istrate, puts annually into the public coffer a certain sum of 
money, which he declares upon oath to be one fourth per 
cent of all that he possesses, but without declaring what it 
amounts to, or being liable to any examination upon that 
subject. This tax is generally supposed to be paid with 
great fidelity. In a small republic, where the people have 
entire confidence in their magistrates, are convinced of the 
necessity of the tax for the support of the state, and believe 
that it will be faithfully applied to that purpose, such 
conscientious and voluntary payment may sometimes be 
expected. 

The canton of Underwald, in Switzerland, is frequentljr 
ravaged by storms and inundations, and is thereby exposed 
to extraordinary expenses. Upon such occasions the people 
assemble, and every one is said to declare with the greatest 
frankness what he is worth, in order that he may be taxed 
accordingly. At Zurich the law orders that, in case of 
necessity, every one should be taxed in proportion to his 
revenue ; the amount of which he is obliged to declare upon 
oath. They have no suspicion, it is said, that any of their 
fellow-citizens will deceive them. At Basle the principal 
revenue of the state arises from a small custom upon goods 
exported. All the citizens make oath that they will pay 



282 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

every three months all the taxes imposed by the law. All 
merchants, and even all inn-keepers, are trusted with keeping 
themselves the account of the goods which they sell either 
within or without the territory. At the end of every three 
months they send their account to the treasurer, with the 
amount of the tax computed at the bottom of it. It is not 
suspected that the revenue suffers by this confidence. 

Adam Smith very clearly lays down the qualities which 
economy demands in every system of taxation. The four 
following principles contain these qualities : 

The subjects of every state ought to contribute to the 
support of the government, as nearly as possible in propor- 
tion to their respective abilities ; that is, in proportion to 
the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protec- 
tion of the state. In the observation or neglect of this 
maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of 
taxation. 

The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to 
be certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the 
manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be 
clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person. 
Where it is otherwise, every person subject to the tax is put 
more or less in the power of the tax-gatherer, who can either 
aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort 
by the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite 
to himself. The uncertainty of taxation encourages the 
insolence and favors the corruption of an order of men who 
are naturally unpopular, even when they are neither insolent 
nor corrupt. 

Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the 
manner, inwhich it is most likely to be convenient for the con- 
tributor to pay it. A tax upon the rent of land or of houses, 
payable at the same time at which such rents are usually 
paid, is levied at a time when it is most likely to be conven- 
ient for the contributor to pay; or when he is most likely to 
have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such consumable 
goods as are articles of luxury, are all finally paid by the con- 



PURPOSES OF TAXATION. 283 

sumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient to 
him. He pays them by little and Httle, as he has occasion 
to buy the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy or 
not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever 
suffers any considerable inconvenience from such taxes. 

Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out 
and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as pos- 
sible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury 
of the state. 

The methods of indirect taxation used in the United 
States will be discussed to further extent further on in this 
work. 

Taxation, by different methods, having provided means 
for public consumption, the following purposes are provided 
for: 

The first purpose to which public consumption is applied 
is that of the support and administration of the government. 
Law and order are grand essentials of good society. On 
them depend the security of private property and of personal 
enjoyment. To secure these, officers of various grades and 
qualifications must be supported. There are a few simple 
principles which should govern this branch of expenditure. 
Economy requires, that precisely such talent should be 
employed, in the various offices of civil government, as may 
be necessary to insure the discharge of the duties of each 
office in the best possible manner. Many of these offices 
can only be discharged successfully by the first order of 
human talent, cultivated by learning and discipline, and 
directed by incorruptible integrity. Now it is certainly bad 
economy, to employ inferior talent to do badly, that which 
can only be of any service when it is done well. 

Hence the salaries of judicial, legislative and executive 
officers should be such as will command the services of such 
talent as the duties of each office require. It is most unwise 
parsimony, to give to a judge such a salary as will command 
the services of nothing more than a third rate lawyer; and it is 
mean to ask an individual to do a service for the community. 



284 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

at a lower rate than that at which he would do it for an 
individual. 

A second purpose for which public consumption is used, 
is that of public and internal improvements. Here are 
included such things as paving, cleaning and lighting the 
streets of a city, providing water-works and sewerage, con- 
structing roads and canals, improving harbors, building and 
sustaining light-houses. These works confer benefits upon 
the whole community. It is just, therefore, that they should 
be paid for out of the common treasury. For them, also, it 
is often necessary that private property be taken for public 
use, by the right of eminent domain, a right peculiar to the 
government. If they would be a profitable investment of 
capital, individuals would be willing to undertake them. If 
they would be an unprofitable investment, both parties had 
better let them alone. The only case in which a govern- 
ment should assume such works, is that in which their 
magnitude is tpo great for individual enterprise, or that in 
which the power which they confer, is too great to be 
entrusted to private corporations. Whenever they are under- 
taken, the principles on which the expenditure should be 
made, are the same as those which govern the expenditure 
of individuals. 

Public consumption is in part used for the purpose of 
advancing science and diffusing intelligence. Nations are 
greatly enriched by the result of discovery and invention, 
and hence the whole people are vastly interested in the prog- 
ress of science and the growth of intelligence. Because 
this is the case, it is equitable and wise that a portion of the 
public revenue be devoted to this purpose. To this class of 
public works belong exploring expeditions, astronomical 
observations, geological surveys and coast surveys. By the 
system of storm signals the National Observatory saves, 
annually, wealth that is exposed to the dangers of the seas, 
whose value is a hundred-fold that consumed in its main- 
tenance. Any measure which will increase the general 
intelligence of a people may wisely be provided for out of 



PROVISION FOR WAR. 285 

the funds for public consumption. The reHef of a certain 
kind of pauperism may demand a portion of the pubHc con- 
sumption. The poor we have always with us. Every encour- 
agement should be given to the exercise of private charity 
for its relief, because christian beneficence brings a blessing 
to the giver as well as to the receiver. But there is neces- 
sity also for some public provision for the poor, to meet 
some cases which fall outside the range of private benefi- 
cence, and also to offer some facilities for the poor to do 
something toward their own support. It is unwise, however, 
to dispense either public or private charity in a way to 
encourage pauperism. 

A last object of public consumption is the defense of the 
nation. The cheapest defense of nations is justice ; but justice 
must itself be maintained. The general good is involved in 
the nation's life. While selfishness rules human hearts as it 
does, especially in international relations, exigencies will 
arise when nothing but military force will save a nation's 
life. Such exigencies must be anticipated by due appropria- 
tions for forts, and armies and navies, and the various muni- 
tions of war. When war is enevitable, then no expense is 
unreasonable which is necessary to prosecute it with the 
utmost vigor. 

The whole management of public expenditures should be 
such as to hold the respect and confidence of the people. 

Private and'public consumption will, under a wise manage- 
ment of industry, balance production with always a surplus 
to export to other portions of the globe. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

DISTRIBUTION — PROPERTY. 

DISTRIBUTION is that department of polical economy 
which determines the principles on which the proceeds 
of industry are divided among the parties concerned in 
their production. As property is one of the results of indus- 
try, it is the first thing to be considered. The origin of 
ownership in land is a question that would be interesting; 
but the science of economy is concerned only with the fact 
that it is professedly owned by some persons, and with the 
doctrine as to who should own it, and how the distribution 
should be made. 

There are three theories prevailing relative to the owner- 
ship of land. The first theory is that of community of prop- 
erty and equal distribution of the products of industry. The 
second theory is that of ownership by the government. The 
third and practical theory is that of individual ownership. 

In conceiving property in land, and its vested rights as 
derived from a particular organization of society, we may 
suppose a community unhampered by any previous pos- 
session ; a body of colonists, occupying for the first time an 
uninhabited country, bringing nothing with them but what 
belonged to them in common, and having a clear field for 
the adoption of the institutions and polity which they 
judged most expedient ; required, therefore, to choose 
whether they would conduct the work of production on 
the principle of individual property, or on a system of 
common ownership and collective agency. 

If the object aimed at would be to hold the land and all 
instruments of production as the joint property of the com- 
munity, and to carry on the operations of industry on the 
common account, the direction of the labor of the com- 

286 



HORACE GREELEY'S FANCY. 28/ 

munity would devolve upon a magistrate or magistrates, 
whom we may suppose elected by the suffrages of the com- 
munity, and whom we must assume to be voluntarily obeyed 
by them. The division of the produce would in like manner 
be a public act. The principle might either be that of com- 
plete equality, or of apportionment to the necessities or 
deserts of individuals, in whatever manner might be conform- 
able to the ideas of justice or policy prevailing in the 
community. 

The characteristic name given this theory is communism ; 
under a somewhat modified form it has assumed in England 
the name of socialism. The general idea of the teaching of 
communism or socialism is either that of the entire abolition 
of private property, or that the land and the instruments of 
production should be the property, not of individuals, but of 
communities. The two highest intellectual efforts to give 
existence to this theory have been called, from the names of 
their projectors, St. Simonism and Fourierism. The former 
is defunct as a special system, but ere its death succeeded 
in sowing the seeds of nearly all the extreme socialist 
tendencies. Horace Greeley was an enthusiastic advocate 
of Fourierism, but he discovered that every benevolent fancy 
could not be successfully applied. 

Most serious objections arise in every attempt to apply 
the theory of community of property. One unanswerable 
objection is that in a system of community of property and 
equal distribution of products, many persons would be inces- 
santly striving to evade their fair share of the work, respon- 
sibilities and duties. Some persons, under any course of 
training, are determined to be indolent; others strive to 
reduce to the lowest minimum the amount of work expected 
of them, for fear they will do a little which should be done 
by some one else. Another objection which social philoso- 
phy sees in such a system is, that if every member of the 
community were assured of subsistence for himself and all his 
family, in the sole condition of his willingness to work, pru- 
dential restraint on the multiplication of mankind would 



288 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

be at an end, and if this system should become universal, a 
population would start forward at a rate which would expose 
humanity to increasing stages of discomfort if not ultimate 
starvation. 

Political economy beholds in this system a still greater 
difficulty. It would be almost impossible to fairly apportion 
the labor of the community among its members. There are 
many kinds of labor, and no plan can determine a standard 
by which they can be measured one against another. It 
would be impossible to judge how much cotton-spinning, 
brick-laying or selling of goods should be an equivalent to so 
much plowing. The difficulty of adjusting different qualities 
of labor is so strong that communist leaders have advocated 
that all should work by turns at every description of useful 
labor: an arrangement which, by putting an end to the 
division of employments, would sacrifice so much of the 
advantage of cooperative production as greatly to diminish 
the productiveness of labor. Besides, even in the same kind 
of work, nominal equality of labor would be so great a real 
inequality, that the feeling of justice would revolt against its 
being enforced. All persons are not equally fit for all labor; 
and the same quantity of labor is an unequal burden on the 
weak and the strong, the hardy and the delicate, the quick 
and the slow, the dull and the intelligent. 

Notwithstanding these heavy difficulties the community 
doctrine of property has been supported by such able writers 
as John Stuart Mill. But it is safe to say that as society is 
now organized this theory can never become the universally 
accepted one. 

The theory of governmental control is similar to that of 
community of property. The authority of the government 
is substituted for the management of the community. Gov- 
ernment officials would direct all industries, manage all work, 
divide all products equally, and put into a fund for the 
common good all profits. The same objections which face 
communism are in the way of this theory, with the additional 
one that it is not the province of government to manage 



THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 289 

industry. The more simple the province of government 
and the fewer the number of ofificials the better will be the 
administration of justice, is the cautionary lesson of the 
history of all government. 

If in the colony we supposed started, private property 
were adopted, we must presume that it would be accom- 
panied by none of the initial inequalities and injustice which 
obstruct the beneficial operation of the principle in old 
society. Every full-grown man or woman, we must suppose, 
would be secured in the unfettered use and disposal of his 
or her bodily and mental faculties; and the instruments of 
production, the land and tools, would be divided fairly 
among them, so that all might start, in respect to outward 
appliances, on equal terms. It is possible also to conceive 
that in this original apportionment, compensation might be 
made for the injuries of nature, and the balance redressed 
by assigning to the less robust members of the community 
advantages in the distribution, sufficient to put them on a 
par with the rest. But the divison, once made, would not 
again be interfered with ; individuals would be left to their 
own exertions and to the ordinary chances for making an 
advantageous use of what was assigned to them. 

The foundation idea of private property is, that pro- 
ducers have a right to what they themselves have produced. 
It consists in the recognition of each person to the right of 
exclusive disposal of what he or she have produced by their 
own exertions, or received either by gift or fair agree- 
ment from those who produced it. The right of property 
includes, then, the freedom of acquiring by contract. If a 
man has a right to what he has produced by industry, hon- 
esty and frugality, he also has an equal right to dispose of 
what he has acquired as he may please. The right of each 
to what he has produced implies a right to what has been 
produced by others, if obtained by their free consent ; since 
the producers must either have given it from good will, or 
exchanged it for an equivalent, and to prevent them from 
doing so would infringe one of the dearest rights of humanity. 
19 



290 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Nothing is implied in the system of private property but 
the right of each person to his own faculties, powers and 
skill, to what he can produce by them, together with his 
right to give this by gift or contract to any person if he may 
please, and the right of that other person to receive and 
enjoy it. From this it is clear that the father has a full right 
to distribute his property to his children, at his death, by the 
form of will or bequest. 

The right of property, like that of liberty, is a personal 
right, and not a legal. Man's right to property does not 
rest inherently in any law favoring this system, but in the 
fact that property is to be acquired only by personal effort. 
As freedom must be a quality in all well-regulated labor, so 
it must be a quality in property which is the result of labor. 
The value of labor belongs to the man who creates it by 
his labor, whether this labor be in bond or in manufacturing. 
It may be said that in most labor as performed in large 
industries, or in that of the farm laborer, the laborer, as a 
fact, does not get all he produces, nor should he. It must 
be remembered that the laborer does not furnish, in these 
instances, the whole producing force. In the manufacture 
the doer has no right of possession in the capital invested 
in the buildings, machinery or material. In the work of the 
farm he has nothing invested in the capital of the land, 
animals or machinery. In both these cases he furnishes the 
labor only, and is entitled only to a proportionate share of 
the profits. The farmer also owns his farm, and all the 
force needed to work it, has secured to himself all the 
results of his labor, including the profits of his investment, 
as well as the reward for his personal labor. Where a man 
both owns the capital and performs the labor, the entire 
accruing result belongs to himself. Where he unites his 
labor with another man's capital, he forms a partnership, 
and must share the results of the enterprise with the man 
furnishing the capital. 

The right to land is the same in manner and extent as 
that in any other kind of property. Who shall own the land ? 



THE LAND QUESTION. 29I 

is a question that in some countries promises to spring some 
problems and dangers of dynamite force and terror. There 
is a definite quantity of land in every country, which cannot 
be increased ; low lands, and barren hills and deserts, may by 
different methods be reclaimed, but the acreage is definite 
and must remain so. Every acre that is taken up by any 
one leaves so much less for others to occupy. It is a 
tendency in some countries that all the land will fall into a 
very few hands. England has a population of thirty-five 
millions, yet all the land is owned by less than one million 
men ; and if there is thrown out of the estimate those who 
merely possess town lots, it is shown that two hundred and 
sixty-nine thousand five hundred and forty-seven land 
owners hold the farming lands ; while five thousand persons 
own fully one half of these lands. The tendency is going 
on, and the number of land owners is becoming fewer and 
fewer. Ireland has a population of five and a half millions, 
and the land is in the hands of thirty-two thousand five 
hundred and seventy-two persons. In this country there are 
uncalculated acres still unoccupied, with inexhaustible mines 
and forests thousands of miles deep, and it appears a far-off 
trouble with us. But the matter will by and by come up 
for adjustment. England and Ireland are in danger of an 
industrial revolution from this very cause. England has 
tried to grapple with the matter in her dealing with Ireland. 
The action has been taken by parliament that society can, 
by its authorized agents, step in between the land holder 
and his tenant, and put a limit to the right of property in 
the land. The rents are fixed which the landlords may 
demand for the use of the soil. 

Can there be fixed a limit beyond which men cannot go 
in monopolizing the land of the country? This question 
will force itself on society more and more. This, above all 
former times, is an age for amassing great fortunes. Large 
accumulations of wealth seek to be used as capital. They 
will be put in investment, used in gifts of benevolence, or lie 
idle. The latter is condemned by political economy. The 



292 THE SCIE^XE OF NAtlONAL LIFE. 

amount devoted to chanty will, as it should, become larger 
and larger ; still there will remain immense fortunes, which 
will demand investment somewhere. Land is considered the 
most safe and reliable place for money, hence it may be sup- 
posed that in the future, more than in the present, will 
wealth, in the hands of the few, purchase in large tracts the 
land of the country. The tendency will grow by exercise 
until even a worse condition of the land question may, in 
the far future, be expected in this country, than England is 
now troubled over. 

The remedy for this inequality of property is not the 
communistic plan of forbiding all property. Society has as 
a paramount claim the personal rights of its members ; and 
either by reformation or revolution, society, as a last resort, 
will secure itself against the evil of monopoly in land. As 
land is the basis of all wealth, and as there should be as 
much of a general distribution of this basis as possible, it 
may be a suggestive question, if there should not be in this 
country, some kind of legislative limitation against large 
landed possessions? Gladstone, the most sagacious statesman 
in the world, has attempted this policy with the land question 
of Ireland, and with strong show of advantage. 

May we not suppose that two hundred thousand dollars 
of capital in land is quite enough for any one person, in 
order to serve the highest economic interest of the whole 
people. It might be better if the limit was one hundred 
thousand dollars. This would not say that a man must limit 
his wealth to this amount, but only that this must be the 
limit of his capital invested in land. The highest good of 
the whole people would establish the right to enact such a 
law. There might be at least two good results flow from 
such a policy. In the first place, it would encourage a person 
of great wealth to seek many and smaller industries for the 
use of his capital, thus contributing to the life and energy 
of production, by which the laboring class would be bene- 
fited. In a second place, it would have an effect on the 
charitable spirit of this wealthy class, who, finding that there 



CIVIL PROTECTION OF PROPERTY. 293 

would be a limit to the amount of capital they could hold in 
land, might be interested more generally in plans for gener- 
ous distribution of their surplus to carry on institutions and 
movements of social, intellectual • and moral culture of the 
poorer classes. There is no grander project in this world for 
a man of wealth, than to systematically contribute annually 
large sums for these purposes. 

The rights of property are only secure under a careful 
civil protection. One of the highest duties of government is 
that of protection to life and property. In a rude or savage 
society, a man who wished to accumulate property, had not 
only to labor to create it, and to exercise self-denial to save 
it, but he had to devote a considerable part of his time and 
strength to defending his possessions, as well as his life, 
against others. To save this last necessity, society and gov- 
ernments exist, their use being to make life and property 
secure against attack ; and by a general cooperation and con- 
tribution of efforts or of means to overawe and punish depre- 
dators. Armies, navies, the police, the courts, and the body 
of laws in obedience to which all these act in a free state, are 
simply means for the protection of life and property, at a 
cheaper rate, and in a more effective manner, than could be 
done by individual efforts ; and every nation is, therefore, in 
this respect, only a great cooperative association, in which 
each member contributes somewhat from his accumulations 
or earnings to pay the charges for preserving the rest. It is 
only by thus delegating the power of protection to a few 
members of society, that the remainder can get time to 
produce sufficient for consumption and a surplus — which 
surplus we call wealth, or capital. And it is only where 
this protection is effective that men are encouraged to the 
labor and self-denial necessary to create property or wealth. 



iL. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

DISTRIBUTION — PUBLIC LANDS — LAND LAWS. 

THE American government has nowhere shown more 
wise economic measures than in its provisions for the 
distribution of its lands among the laboring class of its 
citizens. The poorest man in this country can become 
well-to-do within ten years under the distribution laws of 
public lands. 

The general government obtained possessions of their 
lands in the fairest manner : by purchase or treaty with for- 
eign powers, and from the Indians, and by a praiseworthy 
cession on the part of the several older states. It is true 
those tracts might in a certain sense be called ownerless ; but 
it was in conformity with, and conducive to, good order not 
to let every one seize upon and appropriate the lands at his 
own discretion, but to allow the government to proceed with 
system and method, and promulgate judicious laws respect- 
ing them. Those individuals who had settled here and there 
at pleasure were treated with proper fairness and allowed 
the right of preemption. 

When greater assumptions on the part of individuals had 
properly been repulsed, some states preferred the claim that 
all the land lying within their boundaries belonged to them, 
and that the general government had nothing to do with it. 
To this it was replied : Although a territory, when its 
inhabitants amount to the requisite number, is raised to the 
rank of a state of the great confederacy, it does not follow 
that the Union has bestowed or must bestow on it all the 
public land lying within its borders. The new settlers pos- 
sess not the slightest right in this respect ; whereas the right 
of the Union rests on purchase and cession, has never been 
disputed, but has been confirmed times without number. 

294 



THE LANDED ESTATE OF GOVERNMENT. 295 

Such a partial and inconsiderate bestowal of the public lands 
would rob the government of one of its principal sources of 
revenue, cast all the burdens of the state upon the customs, 
and deprive the older states of what they obtained for their 
money or by their exertions. They have purchased, 
defended, surveyed, valued, and brought it into market, and 
have employed the proceeds for the public good ; the gov- 
ernment shows itself reasonable enough in claiming no rights 
of sovereignty within the bounds of an individual state, but 
only the rights of a private proprietor, while it also assumes 
the obligations that rest on one. 

The moderate defenders of the claims of those states 
responded : Our purpose is not to make an immense dona- 
tion to them, but to simplify the inappropriate and compli- 
cated duties of the central administration, to do away with 
injurious influences, and to put an end to perpetual disputes 
between congress and the single states. In order, however, 
to supply the wants of the general government, we will take 
from the proceeds of the sales conducted by the states so 
much per centum as remains after deducting the expenses of 
managing the lands. Should the management and sale of 
the lands lying in the several states be transferred to them, 
the sums to be paid to the general government would be 
augmented rather than diminished, and consequently the 
Union would not be a loser, but a gainer, by the more active 
exertions of the states. 

But the letter and the spirit of the federal constitution 
point to the revenue arising from land as the first financial 
resource of the Union ; and, in fact, it would be no misfor- 
tune if there were no need of any other tax. If, however, at 
some future period all the public lands should be sold, and 
this source of revenue be exhausted, the wealth and popula- 
tion of the country will have been so much increased in the 
meanwhile that even a far greater amount can be easily 
raised. 

Henry Clay said, in one of his speeches : " Every consider- 
ation of duty to ourselves and to posterity enjoins that we 



296 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

should abstain from the adoption of any wild project that 
would cast away this vast national property, holden by the 
general government in sacred trust for the whole people of 
the United States." 

A system of surveying the public lands was inaugurated 
as early as 1785 by congress. Since then immense tracts of 
country have been surveyed, and accurate maps and records 
filed in the general and district land offices. Before being 
offered for sale, the unoccupied lands are surveyed in ranges 
of townships, each six miles square. A township is after- 
ward divided into thirty-six sections, each section containing 
one square mile, or about six hundred and forty acres. The 
divisional mark of the six hundred and forty acre sections is 
made by lines crossing each other from east to west and 
from north to south. These sections are further subdivided 
into quarters of one hundred and sixty acres each, and also 
eighths (eighty acres) and sixteenths. The surveyors put up 
distinguishable marks in the field indicating the corner of 
townships, the sections and quarter sections. Section six- 
teen of each township is set apart for common schools, and 
other land for colleges and universities. Two per cent of 
the purchase money is reserved by the government for the 
encouragement of learning, and three per cent for the con- 
struction of roads, together with all salt-springs and lead 
mines. At first the land was sold in great tracts, and this 
enticed speculators, who either made a fortune by their 
operations or turned bankrupt. Now smaller portions, 
down to forty acres, are offered. 

About one half the area of the entire country yet remains 
under the control of the general government as public lands. 
This would make at least one and a half million square miles 
of public domain. 

These public lands are divided into two great classes. 
The one class have a dollar and a quarter designated as the 
minimum price, and the other class two dollars and a half, an 
acre. Titles to these lands may be obtained by private 
entry, or location under the homestead, preemption and 



HOW TO SECURE FREE LANDS. 297 

timber culture laws ; or, in some cases, by purchase for cash, 
in the case of lands which may be purchased at private sale, 
or such as have not been reserved under any law. Such 
tracts are sold on application to the register of the land office. 

The homestead laws give the right to one hundred and 
sixty acres of a dollar and a quarter lands, or to eighty acres 
of two dollar and a half lands, to any citizen or applicant for 
citizenship over twenty-one who will actually settle upon 
and cultivate the land. This privilege extends only to the 
surveyed lands, and the title is perfected by the issue of a 
patent after five years of actual settlement. The only 
charges in the case of homestead entries are fees and com- 
missions, varying from a minimum of seven dollars to a 
maximum of twenty-two dollars. A person who has once 
availed himself of the homestead provision, cannot procure 
another piece of land at any other office. Nor is a person 
entitled to the privilege who has in any state or territory an 
actual unencumbered tract of three hundred and twenty 
acres ; neither can one who quits or abandons such owner- 
ship, possess himself of the benefit of the provision. By the 
homestead law no land acquired under its provisions shall in 
any event become liable for any debt contracted prior to the 
issue of the patent therefor. 

The timber-culture acts of 1873 and 1878 give the right to 
any settler who has cultivated for eight years as much as five 
acres in trees, to an eighty acre homestead, or if ten acres, to 
a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. The limita- 
tion of the homestead law to one hundred and sixty acres 
for each settler is extended in the case of timber culture so 
as to grant as many quarter sections of one hundred and 
sixty acres each as have been improved by the culture for 
ten years of forty acres of timber thereon, but the quarter 
sections must not lie immediately contiguous. 

There are no United States taxes levied on these lands. 
As long as the fee is in the United States there are no 
taxes whatever, but when the title passes to the state it 
becomes subject to the local legislative enactments. 



298 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

By the timber-culture acts no person can secure more 
than one grant, and only one hundred and sixty acres in any 
one section can be entered. 

If a person making an entry under this act fails to comply 
with its conditions after one year has expired from date 
of entry, the entry will be canceled, and the land will become 
again subject to any of the laws for its possession. Lands 
under this act, while the title is lodged with the United 
States, cannot be held liable for debts. The fees for entries 
are five dollars for an eighty acre tract or less, and ten 
dollars for a hundred and sixty acre tract. The cultivation 
of shrubbery and fruit trees does not meet the requirements 
of this act. 

In 1844 and 1845, when Texas, which had wrested her 
independence from Mexico, became a member of the Union, 
she by treaty expressly reserved her own public lands, which 
then amounted to nearly two hundred million acres, and 
also the right of dividing her territory into other states if 
she saw fit. 

Texas is so burdened by land speculators that it recently 
had to repeal the law allowing the owner of property which 
had been sold for taxes to reclaim it within forty years on 
payment of the tax purchase price with ten per cent interest. 
Since that date titles obtained at tax sales have been consid- 
ered good. 

The general law of tenancy in the states is that it can be 
created by implication, agreement, or by lease. The only 
process to get rid of a bad tenant is by writ of ejectment. 
Distraining for rent is prohibited by statutes in nearly 
all the states. Under other enactments, household and 
personal effects, varying in amount in the different states 
from two hundred dollars to about three thousand dollars, 
are protected and cannot be seized and sold for any debt. 
In this category of exemption from seizure is also included 
the tools of workmen, and the books or apparatus of profes- 
sional men. The legal principle involved in all these cases 



mechanics' liens. • 299 

is, that no person should be deprived of the means of sup- 
porting himself by his own labor. 

In many of the states there are laws against usury. In 
New York, if more than seven per cent interest is exacted^ 
the debtor can plead the usury law, and thus cancel what- 
ever obligation he may have entered into with a creditor. 
The rate of interest borrowers on real estate have to pay for 
money depends altogether on the locality and the condition 
of the times. The usury laws in most of the states are 
always got over in some way, either by premiums or by the 
borrower getting but a fraction of the sum. 

A married man cannot mortgage his property without his 
wife's consent, as she is half owner with him. Whenever 
money is borrowed on mortgage or real estate, the mort- 
gagee may file the bond in the county record office, where it 
is transcribed, and the entry thus made is legal notice to all 
the world. Priority in recording a mortgage (which is 
marked the minute it is received) entitles the mortgagee to 
a first lien, although mortgages may have been executed 
antedating it, but not recorded. 

There is another feature of the laws affecting land in the 
states that demands notice. What are called mechanics' 
liens have, by statute, a priority over all others. A car- 
penter, mason, or other mechanic who has been engaged in 
building a house, and who has not received payment for his 
labor, or for the materials furnished, is entitled to a first 
lien on the premises as against all comers. The same rule 
in law extends to the man who erects a fence, builds a barn, 
or assists in the cultivation of the crops. The courts, by 
process, protect the workmen in securing the fruit of their 
labor, and the owner of the land can be restrained from 
interfering in any way with the property to which there is a 
claim made by the laborer, until the matter is equitably 
adjusted. . For this purpose the courts appoint receivers of 
the property, and on the issue of a suit, the character or 
amount of the claim made is determined by the court or 
jury, as the case may be. 



300 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The public lands are not all reserved for distribution 
among the people ; grants are made for schools and for 
internal improvements. The most of the states have made 
grants for the establishment of agricultural colleges, in which 
farming is taught on scientific methods. Texas has set 
apart for a state university, two hundred and twenty-one 
thousand four hundred acres ; and for educational purposes, 
seventeen thousand seven hundred and twelve acres in each 
county. With two hundred organized counties, the state 
has for free schools, over twenty millions of acres. 

Success has justified the management of the public 
domain on the part of the national and state governments. 

There are extensive tracts belonging to the public 
domain unsuitable for cultivation, but well adapted for graz- 
ing lands. Their value for grazing purposes has, however, 
been greatly diminished by claims being made for special 
spots suitable for watering cattle, and which are necessary 
for the utilization of the adjoining land. Men make their 
fortunes by selecting such spots, and then charging a toll for 
the use of the water. Legislation in this country, as in 
other parts of the world, is a constant contest between the 
greed and selfishness of individuals and the public interest, 
but it must be admitted that brave, and generally successful, 
attempts have been made to protect the interests of the 
public ; and no doubt some means will be devised to provide 
for an equitable use of the enormous districts of grazing 
land, the value of which has greatly increased since the 
export of meat has become possible. 

The great charm which attaches to farming in the United 
States is that the land is occupied and cultivated by the 
owners thereof. Men work willingly ^hen they labor for 
themselves, and bring to bear upon their undertakings a 
degree of intelligence and energy which under other condi- 
tions would be unattainable. 

The economic advantages of such a distribution of the 
public lands are apparent. They are put at such low prices 
as to encourage the laborer to purchase. They are open to 



GREAT CHARM OF AMERICAN FARMING. 30I 

all alike, on the simple condition of American citizenship ; 
and this contributes to our national idea of equality. Under 
this method of disposing of them they are being rapidly 
taken up, and are already effecting a favorable influence in 
the production of the country. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

DISTRIBUTION — WAGES. 

THE general term expressing the remuneration of labor 
is wages, whether it be the daily hire of the hod- 
carrier, the commission of the traveling agent, the fee of the 
lawyer, or the salary of the superintendent. 

Different kinds of labor, and various conditions of the 
laborer affect the prices pai-d for labor. Labor is either 
simple or educated. 

In order to produce simple, or unskilled labor, all that is 
necessary is muscular strength, resulting from a properly 
formed body, and a sound mind in ordinary health. 

But, in order to the production of health and muscular 
strength, it is necessary that the human being be supplied 
with food, clothing, shelter, and, at times, with medicine and 
medical attendance. If a man have nothing to eat to-day, 
he cannot labor to-morrow. If, for a few days, he be 
deprived of food, he will inevitably die. If his food be 
insufficient in quantity, or of improper quality, his strength 
will diminish, and, of course, the muscular efforts, of which 
he would be otherwise capable, will be decreased. If this be 
continued but for a very short time he will become sick, and 
thus lose the power of laboring altogether. If he be not 
relieved, he will die. Hence we see, that there is a natural 
minimum of the cost of labor. The least cost, is that which 
is sufficient to give the laborer all the necessaries of life. If 
we give less, we not only diminish the power of labor, but, 
in a short time, take it away altogether. Hence the mini- 
mum price of labor does not depend upon the will of 
employers, but upon those physiological laws which regulate 
the existence of man. 

But other considerations tend to raise this minimum 

303 



THE LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE OF LABOR. 303 

price of labor. The human race is kept in existence by 
succession. Were it not for rearing children the race would 
become extinct in three quarters of a century. For several 
years children are unable to earn anything, and are a burden 
on the time and wages of the parents. Hence it is neces- 
sary that the parents receive sufficient wages, not only to 
provide food, clothing and shelter for themselves, but also 
for at least two children, until the children are able to 
support themselves. 

Another consideration is that the life of man is often 
prolonged beyond the period when he can labor. In old 
age he is disqualified for labor. Hence he must either be 
supported by his children, or else he must, when yet in full 
strength, accumulate sufficient to support him in his feeble- 
ness. Hence the wages of simple labor must be sufficient, 
not only to support the laborer and at least two children, 
but also to provide for the time when old age prevents labor. 

If just this much be earned by the laborer it will no more 
than supply the ravages of death. This, then, is the lowest 
possible price of simple labor. 

But it is a fact that the number of children of the poor 
far exceed this small average of two children to each family. 
The rich are often childless; the poor rarely are. If the 
laborer received but enough for two children, all over this 
number must produce suffering either for themselves or 
others. If the parental affection is strong, the parent denies 
himself the necessaries of life, and he soon becomes wasted 
in strength and unfit for work. If parental care is neglected, 
the suffering falls directly on the children. This is one rea- 
son why so many children die in infancy. When a portion 
of a family are removed by death, a greater amount of the 
necessaries of life remain for those who survive. So, fre- 
quently out of a great many births but a few survive. In 
the Highlands of Scotland it is not seldom that but two 
children are raised out of a family of twenty. The officers 
of English military barracks say, that while the children of 
parents in the barracks are numerous, yet it is seldom that 



304 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

enough of them are reared to supply the regiments with 
drummers and fifers. 

From these observations it is conckided that the price of 
unskilled labor at all times ought to be high enough to 
allow of a comfortable living and for the raising of such a 
number of children as naturally falls to the lot of the race. 
And this is affected, too by climate. In northern latitudes 
there must be a larger portion of animal food in order to 
endure labor. The Esquimaux live upon animal food 
entirely. And as animal is more expensive than vegetable 
food, the northern laborer, on this account, is more expen- 
sive than the southern. Again: In cold climates clothing is 
much more expensive. A laborer must provide both winter 
and summer clothing; he must protect himself from the 
cold and wet, or he will sicken and die. In cold climates 
much greater expense is incurred in the erection of houses. 
A comfortable house in a northern climate costs the labor 
of several men for several weeks, and of some men of con- 
siderable skill. In India a day or two is sufficient to erect a 
bamboo house, which, in that climate, answers tolerably 
well for the purposes of a habitation. And, besides this, 
in a cold climate fuel, which must be used for from three to 
nine months in the year, is a very great item in the bill of 
annual expense. In warm countries fuel is used for no 
other purpose than that of cooking; and for this purpose a 
very small quantity suffices. 

This, to some extent, accounts for the fact that twenty 
years ago labor in Batavia, a southern clime, was worth four 
cents a day. But this is partly the result of the effect of 
climate on the constitution. The enervating nature of a 
warm climate unfits for labor. The rigor of the northern 
climate compels men to energy, and invigorates them for 
continued effort. An illustration of this is seen in the fact 
that cotton is carried from India and sold to northern manu- 
facturers, and then carried back to India and sold cheaper 
than it can be made by the native workmen. 

A large portion of the labor of a civilized country must 



WHY SKILLED LABOR IS HIGH. 305 

be skilled or educated labor. It requires a special training. 
This adds to the cost of labor. The skilled laborer must 
spend several years in acquiring a knowledge of his trade. 
During this time he is earning nothing. Now his wages, at 
compound interest, if he had been at profitable labor, would 
amount to a considerable sum, especially if they had been 
invested in capital which might have been united with his 
own labor. He is entitled, therefore, to such an addition to 
his wages as would pay the interest upon this amount. 
Besides, in many cases, the learner not only earns nothing, 
but is obliged to feed and clothe himself. This amount is 
to be added to the capital which he has expended, and for 
which his wages should pay the interest. Nor is this all. 
The learner is frequently obliged to pay a large sum for 
instruction. This, also, is to be added to his investment, 
for which he is to be paid when we employ him. Thus, in 
the learned professions, a student is obliged, commonly, to 
spend two or three years in preparing for college, to spend 
four years in college, and three years in professional studies, 
before he is admitted to practice. During the whole of 
these nine or ten years, in which he earns nothing, he must 
be fed, clothed and furnished with books, and must pay a 
very considerable sum to his instructors for tuition. He 
must, in most cases, also possess the means to meet all 
these expenses before he commences. Now, had he used 
such a sum skillfully from the time at which he commenced 
to that at which he concluded his studies, it would have 
amounted to a small competency. He is, therefore, fairly 
entitled, in addition to. the price of simple labor, to such 
wages as would pay the interest of whatever such a sum 
would have amounted to had it been used with ordinary skill. 
Wages which, in addition to the price of simple labor, 
would pay the interest of whatever is expended in procuring 
the necessary education would, hence, be the lowest cost of 
such labor. And it is manifest also, that these should vary 
with the cost of the investment necessary for acquiring the 
skill. Thus the wages of him who was obliged to sustain 
20 



,j^^.. 



306 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

himself while a learner should be higher than those of him 
who, though he earned nothing, was fed and clothed by his 
teacher. The wages of him who was obliged to pay for his 
tuition, should be higher than those of him who, though he 
fed and lodged himself, received his tuition for his services. 
And if such wages be not generally paid, such labor will not 
ordinarily be produced. Parents who have capital to bestow 
upon their children, are generally desirous of investing it to 
the best advantage. If the capital necessary to furnish a 
professional education will not improve the condition of a 
child, the parent will not invest the money in a professional 
education, but will employ it for the advantage of his 
child in some other way. In this manner the supply of such 
labor will be diminished, until necessity obhges men to offer 
greater inducements to produce it. 

The remuneration of skilled labor is not merely deter- 
mined by the time, expense and work of acquiring that skill, 
but as well by the usefulness to which it can be turned. 
Two men may have spent the same time, given the same 
amount of work, and paid out the same sum of money, to 
acquire their education, yet one receives twice the pay for 
his services as the other. The scale of remuneration for 
educated services is affected by the development and utility 
of real merit. In the learned professions men of the highest 
ability and repute receive extraordinary remuneration, simply 
because such men distance competition and custom. 

Merit of the highest order can claim any reward. After 
the reputation has been achieved through merit and effort, 
lecturers like Greeley and Tilton, lawyers like Webster and 
Choate, and physicians like Mott and Parker, would be 
overwhelmed with business if they did not limit ifc by 
high charges. 

George Stephenson is an illustration of this reward of 
merit. He began his career as an engine-boy at the lowest 
wages. As his mechanical genius was developed, he was 
made an engine-wright, and put upon a salary of a hundred 
pounds a year, when he thought his fortune was made. But 



GREAT DEMAND FOR UNSKILLED LABOR. 307 

by patient study and labor he invented the locomotive- 
engine, and became the promise of the railroad. Then the 
services of his later years received munificent remuneration. 
The world, enjoying unspeakable benefits from his achieve- 
ments, pronounces that remuneration justly and worthily 
bestowed. 

The demand for unskilled labor is more imperative than 
for skilled labor, because it is unskilled labor, mostly, which 
conducts the great operative industries. Every one in a 
community must have at every hour of his life the results of 
that labor which produces food, clothing, fuel and shelter; 
and as all these articles perish with the using, the demand is 
not only imperative but unremitting. 

Now, such being the fact, he who possesses capital knows 
that if he can transform it into such products he can always 
reasonably anticipate a profit. But he cannot transform it 
into such products without labor. Hence, as incessant and 
imperative as is the demand for the necessaries of life, so 
incessant and imperative must be the demand of the cap- 
italists for that labor, by means of which alone they are 
produced. If a community need clothing, and a capitalist 
has all the means for making clothing, and wants nothing 
but workifnen to create the product, just in proportion to 
the demand for clothing will be his demand for the work- 
men, by whose agency alone this demand can be supplied 
and his capital rendered profitable. 

Such being the fact, there must always be a demand for 
such labor ; hence, when there is any capital, such labor will 
always bring something. 

Every capitalist will wish to employ all his capital, either 
in skilled or unskilled labor. If the number of laborers be 
insufficient to supply the demand, there will be a competi- 
tion among capitalists for laborers, and they will offer higher 
wages: that is, rather than have any portion of their capital 
useless, they will offer a larger share of the profits to the 
laborer. The first class of workmen will all be employed at 
a high price, and a portion of the second class will be raised 



308 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

one grade, in order to supply the demand. The second 
class will, then, be still more insufficient to supply the 
demand for their description of labor, and their wages will 
rise, and the increased deficiency be supplied from the third 
class. And, at last, those who were before employed only at 
simple labor will be taught and employed in educated labor ; 
and thus the whole class of workmen will be raised one 
grade in labor and in wages. 

And the reverse will take place in the opposite case. 
Suppose the number of laborers be too great to be em- 
ployed by the existing amount of capital. A capitalist, 
whofee capital will occupy but one hundred, cannot employ 
one hundred and fifty laborers. Hence there will be a 
competition among laborers for work. After as many of 
the first class have been employed as are needed, there will 
remain a portion of them out of work. These must fall into 
the second class, and receive tlie second rate of wages. This 
will cause an excess still greater in the second class ; their 
wages will fall, and a greater number will fall into the third 
class. The lowest class will thus be supplied from the 
classes above it, and it must betake itself to simple labor, or 
labor of the cheapest kind ;• while many of those whose 
only support is derived from simple labor must be out of 
employment either wholly or in part : that is, the whole 
class" of laborers will fall one grade, and their wages will 
depreciate in proportion. Hence, we see, that at any given 
time and place the demand for labor and the wages of labor 
will be in the proportion to the ratio that the active capital 
of a country bears to the number of laborers in that country. 

But wages are affected otherwise than by the influence of 
large or small capital. Whenever in any country capital is 
removed from one kind of an employment to another, the 
wages in that form of labor to which capital is transferred, 
will be raised. Thus, if a people find it for their interest to 
employ their capital in manufactures, instead of navigation, 
the wages of manufacturers will rise, and those of sailors will 
fall. This will continue until the demand for manufacturing 



THE RATIO OF WAGES. 309 

labor is supplied. But when the current is once set in any 
direction, it frequently continues to move after the force 
which was originally applied has ceased. Hence it will fre- 
quently happen, that a change of this sort will abstract from 
navagation too large a number of laborers, so that there will 
not be a sufficient supply to meet even the diminished 
demand. In this case the wages of seamen will rise again, 
somewhat above the proper average. 

Again, the price of labor is affected by the ease or diffi- 
culty, the honor, or absence of honor, accompanying the 
employment. 

When the employment, for instance, requires great mus- 
cular effort, the number of persons who can accomplish it 
is comparatively small. This diminishes the supply, and, of 
course, increases the price. When this is the case, as men 
are not usually attracted by the prospect of hard labor, a 
smaller number apply for this kind of employment. This 
still further diminishes the supply. Hence, the price will 
rise, as the wages must be increased sufficiently to overcome 
this repugnance. On the contrary, when the labor is easy, 
the number of persons both able and willing to perform 
it is increased ; thus the supply is large and wages fall in 
proportion. 

The same effect is produced by the general estimation of 
the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the employment. 
Any kind of industry, which from necessity is uncleanly, 
commands higher wages than one which can be performed 
without interfering with personal neatness. One which is 
considered disgraceful can be supplied with laborers only by 
paying an unusual price. 

Labor in which reposes large confidence, commands high 
wages. Whenever a great amount of capital is invested, it 
must, to a great degree, be placed under the management of 
one or two agents. If the confidence is abused, the whole 
is liable to be lost. This confidence, which is the union of 
judgment with incorruptible integrity, is rarely found. The 
demand is imperative and the supply is small ; consequently 



3IO THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the wages of such persons are high. Doctor Wayland 
says this is one of the rewards God bestows upon wisdom 
and virtue. 

Another circumstance which affects the price of wages is 
the certainty or uncertainty of success. In most of the 
ordinary avocations of life, if a man acquire the requisite 
skill, he will invariably find employment. In the professions 
it is not so. Those who have prepared themselves at great 
expense for the practice of a profession, unable to find 
employment, sometimes relinquish it for another pursuit. 
When such a risk exists, the wages of labor should be 
greater, for the laborer is entitled to a remuneration for the 
risk of this loss of time and of capital. 

Competition is the controlling circumstance affecting the 
price of labor. Many laborers are seeking wages, and high 
wages at the same time ; many capitalists are seeking profits 
as large as possible ; competition is active in proportion to 
the comparative numbers on either side. 

If the number of laborers is large in proportion to the 
employment offered, a sharp competition arises between 
those seeking work. Each, rather than lose his chance for 
wages, will lower the rate at which he will contract. If the 
number of employers is large, with a large amount of capital 
in proportion to the number of laborers, a sharp competition 
arises among employers. Each, rather than lose his chance 
for anticipated profits, will raise the rate of wages he is 
willing to pay. 

If, for any reason, the wages in a particular branch of 
industry rise above the ordinary rate, a speedy rush of 
laborers into that employment intensifies competition till the 
wages are brought down. On the other hand, if a particular 
branch of production yields profits above the ordinary rate, 
there comes a rush of employers with their capital into that 
business; wages are raised, and products are multiplied and 
cheapened till profits are brought down to the ordinary level. 
Competition thus tends to bring wages and profits to an 
equilibrium most favorable to the interests of all. In the 



USELESSNESS OF COMBINATIONS. 311 

nature of things, competition is inevitable: it has a blessing 
in it, and it is simply absurd to ignore or condemn it. 

Labor unions frequently attempt to regulate wages, by 
resisting competition in two ways: First, by promoting 
and sustaining strikes, in which they are likely to aggravate 
the evils already referred to, because under them the strike 
is better organized and more domineering. They are apt 
also to insist on uniformity of wages irrespective of the 
varying abilities and efficiency of different workmen, which 
involves injustice to superior artisans as well as to employers. 
Secondly, by restricting apprenticeship, which is simply an 
attempt to rule out free competition and give to a limited 
number of persons a monopoly of certain forms of skilled 
labor. This involves the injustice and mischief which are 
inherent in the very principle of monopoly. If generally 
carried out, it would set the various branches of industry in 
antagonism to each other, and tend, as Mr. Brassey says, "to 
establish that subdivision of caste which has been the great 
curse of India." 

On the other side, combinations of employers are often 
formed to resist competition. Such combinations sometimes 
attempt to regulate the prices of products, creating a 
monopoly in the general market. They sometimes try to 
regulate wages by agreements not to pay above certain 
rates. This is an abuse of the power of capital, in an effort 
to dictate terms. It produces in the laborer a feeling of 
injury and promotes antagonism between labor and capital. 

Such combinations seldom succeed in controlling wages 
except for very brief periods. To be effective, the combina- 
tion must embrace all who are engaged in a particular 
industry, and also all the capital likely to be drawn into it. 
If the wages fixed by the combination are so low as to make 
the profits larger than those of other forms of business, free 
capital will rush in and bid for laborers by raising wages, 
thus renewing competition and defeating the end sought. 

Experience shows that combinations on either side, to pre- 
vent free competition, cannot, for any long time, materially 



312 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

influence the rates of wages. Such attempts interfere with 
the natural law of supply and demand, which is the grand 
regulator of wages for the best interest of all concerned. 
When issues arise between the parties to the labor-contract, 
the surest way to a fair adjustment is by frank mutual 
explanations, or, in the last resort, by joint reference to just 
arbitration. In most cases the occasion of difficulties may 
be forestalled by the culture of mutual good will in active 
cooperation for the common good, intelligently apprehended 
and prosecuted on both sides. 

If competition were universally free and fair, it would do 
much to remove present inequalities of condition, and the 
burdens and the benefits of human industry would be 
equally distributed. But over-reaching selfishness is contin- 
ually interfering with competition to make it neither free 
nor fair. The great principle of justice to all, as true in 
economics as in morals, should be accepted as the best 
arbiter in these controverted cases of labor wages, and it is 
only by an appeal to this, with freedom for both capital and 
labor, that they will adjust themselves. 

The wages paid female labor are lower than for male 
labor. The fact is known as existing everywhere. The 
causes for this are various. Some just, others unjust. In 
physical organism and mental constitution woman is not so 
well qualified as man for all kinds of labor. Woman has not 
the strength to work in the spinning-room of a cotton factory, 
and here man's labor only is in demand. In the weaving- 
room of the same factory woman's labor is mostly used, 
because she can tend the loom as well as man, and her labor 
is cheaper. In all positions needing the ability to calmly 
meet exigencies and unexpected dangers, man is wanted, as 
not one woman in a hundred is calm in the moment of 
surprise and emergency. 

As society is now organized, woman's true sphere is 
regarded as being that of the home, a help to the husband, a 
builder of child character, a priestess of comfort, a dispenser 
of all those finer joys which are the chief glory of a sweet 



WOMAN'S LABOR. 



313 



home life. This common belief creates the impression that 
is it unwomanly to enter the heavy fields where jostle the 
ways of labor. 

There are feminine instincts which prompt women to 
draw back from many occupations because they are coarse, 
or involve too rough jostling with the world. These instincts 
are natural, and when they are crushed out the charm of 
womanhood is gone. Yet the prevailing tendency is to 
make them excessive, so as to produce a morbid sentiment 
of false delicacy. 

In labor in which woman is as well qualified as man, 
there is no just reason why she should not receive the same 
remuneration. In that in which she is not as well qualified, 
and which she does in an inferior manner, there is no just 
reason why her remuneration should not be less, and political 
economy demands that it should be so. 

We shall conclude the discussion of wages by pointing 
out the effect upon them of a direct or indirect tax. If 
those commodities are taxed which are consumed by the 
laborer, or a direct tax is levied upon his income, as the 
burden falls in common on all laborers, there is no oppor- 
tunity to escape it by any rise in prices. If the whole or 
any portion of it is removed from the laborer, it must be at 
the expense of the capitalist, and by a readjustment of the 
division of their mutual fund. But a new apportionment 
can only be effected by a change in one of the elements 
which control it. If laborers are to have more, there must 
be either a decrease in their numbers, or an increase in 
reference to those numbers, of capital. In each case, it 
must be the result of their own prudence. If, then, the 
laboring class is pressed below its wonted standard of com- 
forts by taxation, only a fresh effort of prudence can restore 
them to their lost social rank. It is plainly just that labor 
should bear a portion of the expense of the government 
which protects it ; but when that government has forgotten 
to cherish its most valuable and dependent agent, that 
agent can, nevertheless, protect itself, and throw back the 



314 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

burden on capital, by rigorous self-control. Indeed, without 
self-control the laboring classes will become the pack-horse 
whose capacious panniers will bear the whole burden of 
misery. 

The wages of skilled and educated labor, which come in 
liberal salaries and large incomes, seem a very appropriate 
object of taxation. The agents which this kind of labor 
employs being immaterial are not open to taxation, and 
hence, owing to the absence of those means by which wealth 
is ordinarily acquired, a large revenue derived from educated 
labor may exist under a property tax merely, without con- 
tributing to the common burden. Farmers and manufact- 
urers are taxed on their farms and buildings, and the 
instruments by which their income is realized ; when these 
instruments cannot be reached, it is sufificiently just that 
the income realized should take their place. If a mechanic 
with buildings pertaining to his trade should pay a yearly 
tax, it is fit that a lawyer with a net revenue much 
exceeding his, though without such buildings, should pay 
a corresponding tax. 
\ 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DISTRIBUTION — INTEREST. 

SUPPOSE a man be qualified to work in both simple 
and skilled labor. For simple labor he requires noth- 
ing but health, and the use of his body; in skilled labor he 
must have tools or machinery. If, in this supposed case, 
the laborer be so poor he cannot own a set of tools, though 
he is a fine mechanic he can only work at some low form of 
labor. His unskilled labor is worth only about one dollar 
per day. If he be a carpenter suppose some one loan him a 
set of tools, by which he can avail himself of his skill. His 
labor will now become vastly more productive ; that is, he 
can, in a given time, create a vastly greater amount of value 
than before, and will, of course, receive a much larger recom- 
pense. If his simple labor were worth one dollar per day, 
his labor and skill will now probably be worth at least two 
dollars; that is, the capital which he uses has at least 
doubled his wages. This, at the rate of three hundred 
working days in a year, would be equal to three hundred 
dollars, which he receives for the use of the capital which 
was loaned to him. Suppose that this capital were worth, 
originally, five hundred dollars, and that he paid for the use 
and wear and tear of it, ten per cent per year ; he might then 
pay fifty dollars for the use of it and have two hundred and 
fifty dollars net profit, over and above the wages which his 
simple labor could earn. In two years he might, besides 
paying the interest, pay for the whole capital, and thus own 
it himself. He would then be entitled to all the profit 
derived from the three several sources: First, his labor; 
secondly, his skill ; and thirdly, the use of the capital, upon 
which his labor was employed. 

But this is not the ordinary way in which capital is 
borrowed. It is much more common and much more con- 

315 



^Sj^r, 



3l6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

venient for him who wishes to borrow the capital with which 
to employ his skill, to borrow it in the form of money, which 
he immediately transforms into that kind of capital which 
his occupation requires. Hence contracts of this kind are 
always estimated in money. And hence interest is the price 
of money. From this it is clear that the laborer may derive 
very great benefit from the loan of money. He is enabled 
in this way to employ advantageously all his skill, and this 
alone for a few years is very frequently the commencement 
of a fortune. 

It is evident, then, that capital loaned should be paid for. 
Interest is no extortion and no unreasonable demand. It is 
for the advantage of the skillful laborer to borrow it, at a 
reasonable interest, as much as it is for the advantage of the 
capitalist to loan it ; and it is as much for the advantage of 
the laborer as the capitalist, to enter into that partnership 
by which they share the profits of the operation between 
them. It is by reason of this partnership, that the laborer 
receives the wages of skill instead of the wages of mere 
physical force ; and the capitalist is able to employ all his 
capital in production, instead of employing only that portion 
of it which he could employ with simply his own personal 
industry and skill. 

There are four things which chiefly determine the rate of 
interest. These are risk, convenience, profits, and the ratio 
between supply and demand. 

When a man loans money, he puts it out of his own hands 
into the control of another. There is, in this, always the 
risk of money being lost. Now, the greater this risk, the 
greater will be the interest which a capitalist may justly 
demand. He who would loan to one man at six per cent, 
when he was sure of being repaid, would not, surely, loan to 
another man at the same rate, when there were fifty chances 
in a hundred that he would lose both principal and interest. 

This risk of having money lost in lending it, depends on 
several things. The character of the person to whom it is 
siven is one circumstance which affects a risk. A man with 



WHY INTEREST CHANGES ITS RATE. 317 

whom it will always be safe to entrust money, must be a 
person of industry, frugality, business tact and moral integ- 
rity. He must have an honest employment, which he con- 
ducts in an honest and wise manner. Saloon-keepers, as a 
rule, pay a higher rate of interest than the dry goods or drug 
men on the same street. It is almost impossible for the 
known gambler to borrow money from bank or private 
citizen. The man borrowing money must, to make the risk 
only ordinary, be a man of conscientious scruples, who has 
no desire to evade the laws made in the interest of the 
lender. Such a man can procure money at six per cent 
easier than a man of the opposite moral make up could at 
eight per cent. 

The risk incurred in lending money is determined by the 
character of the government. If justice be well administered, 
and every man have all reasonable security that he will have 
the whole power of the society at his disposal, in order to 
enforce a just contract, of course the risk is less and the 
rate of interest lower than when experience. has shown, that 
no such security exists. Hence is seen the economy of good 
legislation, and of a wise, just and incorruptible judiciary. 
The additional interest on capital, incurred in consequence 
of the bad admmJstration of justice in a country, would 
annually pay the expenses of all the courts of law, ten times 
over. Where the laws restrain commerce and tend to 
harrass progress, trade is dull and capital is at no special 
advantage in any investment. 

The same results flow from confidence, or the want of 
confidence in the stability of a government. A revolution 
not unfrequently dissolves contracts, dissipates security, 
and renders obligations valueless, both by destroying the 
evidence of their existence and annihilating the means of 
enforcing them. Hence, when such an event is feared, men 
will not loan except at an exorbitant premium, and they 
generally prefer removing their property to some other 
country, to subjecting it for any premium whatever to the 
risks of a revolution. 



3l8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The rate of interest is affected by the convenience of 
investment, and this convenience is enhanced by facihty, 
permanency and punctuality. 

In loaning rfioney there is an advantage in having it 
available at any time. A facility of transfer, by which the 
money can be lifted at any time needed, will tend to reduce 
the interest. If a man loan at six per cent, for two years, 
he may, in six months, find some investment in which it 
would yield him eight per cent ; but, having loaned it for 
two years, he cannot now withdraw it. Hence it is a great 
advantage if it can be so invested that he may, without loss, 
recall it at any moment. 

If a man does not want to use his money he desires a 
permanent investment, because he is thus saved the loss of 
interest which would occur during the time of transfer, and 
the trouble and inconvenience of finding another borrower. 
This is of special benefit to widows, orphans, persons retired 
from business, and all those persons who wish not to labor 
with their own capital themselves, but only to live upon the 
interest of it. 

Punctuality in the payment of interest affects the rate. 
It is a great convenience to those who invest capital to be 
able to calculate with certainty on the payment of interest. 
They can thus with ease adjust their expenses, both to the 
amount of their income and to the time of their receipt of 
it. If they wish to reinvest the interest, they can make their 
arrangements with certainty, and thus invest it with the 
greatest advantage. They are also saved the trouble of 
looking after their debtor, and they avoid the inconvenience 
of that personal altercation, which is liable to arise respect- 
ing pecuniary transactions. 

British consols, which represent the consolidated debt of 
England, run at from three to four per cent interest, because 
they combine these three advantages in the form of invest- 
ment they offer. For the same reason, our United States 
bonds are eagerly bought up at a premium, though they bear 
only four or four and a half per cent interest. 



USURY LAWS. 319 

The profits of industry affect, to some extent, the rate of 
interest. This is determined by the borrower. He must 
consider what he can afford to pay, and that evidently must 
depend on the profit he can gain by the use of capital. If, 
as sometimes happens, a business yields so large profits that 
the capital is doubled in a year, one can well afford to pay 
twenty-five or even fifty per cent for capital to be employed 
in such a business ; whereas, if through any cause a particu- 
lar industry yields only three per cent of profit, one cannot 
pay even six per cent for capital to be embarked in that 
business. 

The relation between supply and demand produces the 
same effect upon the rate of interest as upon everything else. 
Whatever be the profit of capital, if the supply be very 
small, the price will rise in proportion ; since he, who by 
employing it at a high price can make a small profit, will 
rather so employ it than, by doing without it, make no profit 
at all. If the supply be large enough, or too large, to meet 
the demand, the price will be low. 

Usury laws — that is the attempt of the government to 
regulate the rate of interest — are an injustice here, as they are 
in their effect elsewhere. A man has the same natural right 
to ask ten per cent for his money, as he has to ask ten dol- 
lars per month rent for a house, and the right to take it if he 
can get it. It is hard to discover a principle by which law 
can fix a price for money, any more than it can fix a price 
by which iron or coal must be sold. 

Money is a necessity of life in active industry and trade, 
and for that reason it ought to be left free to the action of 
the natural law of supply and demand. In active commercial 
centres this is coming to be understood. Every state should 
have a statute defining a legal rate of interest for cases 
in which the contract indicates no specific rate. Beyond 
this, legal sanction and security for all reasonable contracts 
in loaning capital, under free competition, constitute the 
surest safeguard against excessive interest. Massachusetts 
has lately abolished usury laws, and it was a wise measure. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

DISTRIBUTION — RENT. 

RENT is the price paid for the use of land. It imphes 
ownership of land, and a right on the part of the 
owner to receive a compensation for its use when he lets it 
to another. In England, and in all countries where the 
influence of the old feudal system is still felt, the questions 
of rent are perplexing, because the titles to lands are 
encumbered by entails and other claims. In the United 
States, land is held in fee simple, and the ownership is 
absolute ; and consequently the problems of rent are more 
simple. 

In England, where the land is held by a few men, rent is 
almost the effect of a monopoly. Mills says it is altogether 
so. The reason why land owners are able to require rent 
for their land is, that it is a commodity which many want, 
and which no one can obtain but from them. If all the land 
of the country belonged to one person, he could fix the rent 
at his pleasure. The whole people would be dependent on 
his will for the necessaries of life, and he might make what 
conditions he chose. This is the actual state of things in 
those oriental kingdoms in which the land is considered the 
property of the state. Rent is then confounded with taxes, 
and the despot may exact the utmost which the unfortunate 
cultivators have to give. The exclusive possessor of a 
country could not be anything else than a landed despot. 

For agricultural purposes, the amount of rent which land 
will command must depend mainly on its productiveness; 
and this productiveness is determined by the fertility and 
situation of the land. 

Fertility is the first consideration with reference to rent. 
The productiveness of different soils is very diverse. Some 

330 



HOW FERTILITY AFFECTS RENT. 32 1 

soils will produce thirty or forty bushels of wheat to the 
acre, while others will produce, at the cost of more labor, 
not more than ten or fifteen bushels to the acre. Some soils 
will produce the most valuable vegetables ; and others, bnly 
the most common and comparatively worthless. Some soils 
will produce no wheat whatever; and others will, without 
manuring, produce a luxuriant crop, every year. Some, 
wholly unfit for tillage, can be used only for grazing; and 
even when thus employed, yield to their stinted flocks but a 
meagre subsistence. Here is a reason for great diversity in 
the price of land. A farmer might, with profit, pay a heavy 
rent for one farm, and with poor policy occupy another farm 
for nothing. 

There is land, such as the deserts of Arabia, which will 
yield nothing to any amount of labor; and there is land, 
like some of our hard sandy heaths, which would produce 
something, but in the present state of the soil, not enough 
to defray the expenses of production. Such lands, unless by 
some application of chemistry to agriculture still remaining 
to be invented, cannot be cultivated for profit, unless some 
one actually creates a soil by spreading new ingredients over 
the surface, or mixing them with the existing materials. If 
ingredients fitted for this purpose exist in the sub-soil, or 
close at hand, the improvement even of the most unpromis- 
ing spots may answer as a speculation, and in time become 
productive. The interior, or lake district of Florida, in its 
natural condition, will raise nothing. The soil is a light, 
white sand, without any sub-soil. Yet by fertilizing it 
becomes very productive; and the orange gardens of the 
world promise to be in this very section. 

The situation of land is a second important element in 
the value of rent. If a farmer, living one mile from market, 
can put his grain in the market for one cent per bushel, and 
another man, ten miles from market, must be at a cost of 
five cents a bushel to market his grain, the man living but 
one mile from market would have an advantage of market 
worth just four cents on every bushel of grain he sells. This 
31 



322 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

makes the rent of the land one mile from market worth 
about four per cent more than that of the land laying ten 
miles from market. The opening of railroads enhances rent 
by bringing produce within easy run of the markets. 

Beauty of situation, good neighborhood, and proximity 
to schools and churches, are also minor considerations of 
more or less weight in determining the rents of agricultural 
lands. 

In the United States, land is quite frequently rented on 
shares ; that is, the owner receives for the use of his land a 
certain proportion of the produce of the land. In this case, 
the owner shares with the renter the risks as well as the profits 
of the labor of farming. 

In cities, rents for lots and buildings are determined 
almost entirely by location, with respect to centres of busi- 
ness, the character of the neighborhood, and the freaks of 
fashion. A store in the centre of business will rent for much 
more than one half a mile off, because a merchant there will 
sell ten times as many goods as in the other location. A 
residence in a respectable or fashionable quarter of the city 
commands the highest rent, because it secures pleasant sur- 
roundings, or gratifies pride and vanity. With the growth 
of cities, the centres of business and the fashionable quarters 
are subject to change from time to time, so as materially to 
vary the rent value of property; and this fact needs to be 
considered when capital is invested in that form. 

The value of the rent on land having a water power or 
mine, depends on the principles of fertility and situation 
just the same as agricultural lands. A water-fall provides 
for the manufacturer a constant supply of power, which he 
can use by means of very simple machinery. Suppose the 
interest of capital employed in the construction of furnaces 
and steam machinery, and the annual expense for fuel and 
attendance in a given situation, were one thousand dollars, 
and the same power could be procured at the same place by 
appropriating a water-fall, by means of machinery, of which 
the interest was no more than one hundred dollars, the labor 



THE WISDOM OF INSURANCE. 323 

of the water-fall would be worth nine hundred dollars per 
year. Hence, supposing it to be in a situation in which 
there was a demand for this power, the land which gave the 
legal right to the use of it would possess a value proportioned 
to the value of the power. 

A water-fall is a mine of power, a bed of ore is a mine of 
metal. If a piece of land has on it a mine of great produc- 
tiveness and of a good quality of ore, and it be so situated as 
to be within easy reach of market, the value of the rent of 
that land will be immensely increased. In all variations of 
land it may be laid down as a maxim of political economy 
that rent varies with the value of the land. 

As rent covers the price of the use of the land, it includes 
the buildings as well as the soil. These are destructible, 
and are liable to be destroyed. This risk must be covered 
by some provision. In some instances it is provided for by 
the rent being raised high enough to cover this risk, as well 
as pay for the use of the soil. In other instances it is secured 
by insurance. 

The risk of property being destroyed, especially m a city, 
may be estimated. When this risk is known it may be 
■carried by the owner, or he pay a company for bearing it for 
him. This has no effect upon the amount of the loss, in case 
of fire, or destruction in any way. If a ship and cargo worth 
one hundred thousand dollars be sunk, precisely one hundred 
thousand dollars' worth of value is destroyed. The only 
effect of insurance is to make the loss fall upon one person 
instead of upon another. The benefit of this transfer con- 
sists in this, that the loss is thus equalized. It is better for 
a community to divide a given loss among a great number of 
persons, than to suffer it to fall exclusively upon one. 

And hence, inasmuch as every one has the power of avoid- 
ing risk, by paying a small premium; every one whose 
property is small, and liable to be lost by a single accident, 
is negligent if he suffer it to remain a moment uninsured. 
As insurance has no effect upon the fact of loss, the higher 
the premium of insurance the greater is the annual loss to a 



324 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

country ; because it shows us how great an amount of prop- 
erty is annually destroyed. Hence a sound policy would 
always dictate the importance of taking every means to 
reduce the rate of insurance as low as possible. This can be 
done only by reducing the risk of the accidental destruction 
of property. On this account, the abundant supply of water 
is a matter of inestimable economical importance to a city. 
The difference in the amount annually paid for insurance by 
the two cities of New York and Philadelphia is enormous. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

DISTRIBUTION — PROFITS. 

IT is expected that a successful business will more than 
pay for all the expenses in running it ; it is expected 
that it will produce a surplus or profit. To whom does this 
profit belong? All the parties entering into the business 
have been rewarded for their labor or capital. It is evident, 
as industry is organized in this country, that the profit 
belongs to the parties who undertook the enterprise, bore 
the risk, and owned the affair. It is this expected profit 
which induces the planning and execution of business 
enterprises, and compensates for the risks undertaken. 

Profit is the net proceeds, expressed in money values, 
after all the necessary expenses of production have been 
deducted. These several items are to be included in the 
necessary expenses of production. To expenses must first 
be counted the cost of all material used in production, wages 
paid for simple and skilled labor of all kinds, salaries paid 
for management of all kinds, interest on capital invested, 
insurance to cover risks by destruction of property, a proper 
amount for wear of machinery, with taxes paid on the 
capital or on the business. 

If the products of an industrial establishment provide for 
these expenses, and nothing more, the business just sustains 
itself, but it yields no profits. In such a case, since all 
parties get their legitimate compensation, they may be 
satisfied to run on so for years. But in general, the expec- 
tation of profits is the necessary stimulus of enterprising 
industry, and the aim is to make profits as large as possible. 

The lowest rate of profit which can permanently exist is 
that which is barely adequate, at the given place and time, 
to afford an equivalent for the abstinence, risk and exertion 

335 



326 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

implied in the employment of capital. From the gross 
profit has first to be deducted as much as will form a fund 
sufficient on the average to cover all losses incident to the 
employment. Next, it must afford such an equivalent to 
the owner of the capital for forbearing to consume it as is 
then and there a sufficient motive to him to persist in his 
abstinence. 

Further, after covering all losses and remunerating the 
owner for forbearing to consume, there must be something 
left to recompense the labor and skill of the person who 
devotes his time to the business. This recompense, too, 
must be sufficient to enable at least the owners of the larger 
capitals to receive for their trouble, or to pay to some 
manager for his, what to them or him will be a sufficient 
inducement for undergoing it. If the surplus is no more 
than this, none but large masses of capital will be employed 
productively ; and if it did not even amount to this, capital 
would be withdrawn from production and unproductively 
consumed, until, by an indirect consequence of its dimin- 
ished amount, to be explained hereafter, the rate of profit 
was raised. 

When one combines in himself the functions of operator, 
manager and capitalist, wages, salary, interest and profits, if 
there be any, all come to him. No question of distribution 
arises ; but even in such a case it is well for one to keep his 
accounts so as to define what is properly to be reckoned as 
wages for labor, salary for management and interest for 
capital ; only so can the profits of the business be accurately 
estimated. 

Though a common usage, it is yet a serious error to 
express the measure of profits in a business by a percentage 
on the capital invested, as though the profits belong exclu- 
sively to the capitalist. In many cases the labor is of more 
account than the capital. A shoemaker, with a capital of 
five hundred dollars, may, by untiring industry through a 
year, make his proceeds count a hundred per cent on that 
amount, and yet receive an insufficient return for his labor. 



WHAT AFFECTS PROFITS. 327 

Twenty per cent on five hundred thousand dollars invested 
in a great manufacturing establishment may pay well for 
labor and management and ordinary interest on capital, with 
a large margin for profits. Hence it is often better for one 
to work for wages or a salary in connection with a large 
establishment rather than attempt an independent business. 

It is much more difficult to realize a profit from a small 
capital than from a large one. A small capital does not pro- 
duce profits in proportion to the amount of care and labot 
bestowed, that a large one will. A huckster, with his apples, 
may realize a return of several hundred per cent, and not 
more than pay the labor bestowed ; a wholesale dealer may 
find the wages of this kind of labor reduced to one half or 
one fourth per cent on all the capital employed. In the last 
case, the returns are almost all profits; in the first case, 
almost all wages. Twenty per cent, with a capital of ten 
thousand dollars, may give no higher profits than seven per 
cent, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. He 
who has a very large capital, if he can find a business that 
will absorb it all, is willing to accept returns relatively small, 
since the superintendence of a single individual may be 
sufficient, and the risk is uniform. 

Profit is affected by the amount of risk connected with a 
business. The profits of a gunpowder manufacturer must 
be considerably greater than the average, to make up for the 
peculiar risks to which he and his property are constantly 
exposed. When, however, as in the case of a marine advent- 
ure, the peculiar risks are capable of being, and commonly 
are, commuted for a fixed payment, the premium of insur- 
ance takes its regular place among the charges of produc- 
tion, and the compensation which the owner of the ship or 
cargo may receive for that payment does not appear in the 
estimate of his profits, but is included in the replacement of 
his capital. 

The portion, too, of v the gross profit, which forms the 
remuneration for the labor and skill of the dealer or pro- 
ducer, is very different in different employments. This is 



328 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the explanation always given of the extraordinary rate of 
apothecaries' profit ; the greatest part, Adam Smith ob- 
serves, being frequently no more than the reasonable wages 
of professional attendance, for which, until a late alteration 
of the law, the apothecary could not demand any remunera- 
tion, except in the prices of his drugs. Some occupations 
require a considerable amount of scientific or technical 
education, and can only be carried on by persons who com- 
bine with that education a considerable capital. Such is the 
business of an engineer, both in the original sense of the 
term a machine-maker, and in its popular or derivative 
sense, an undertaker of public works. These are always the 
most profitable employments. There are cases again in 
which a considerable amount of labor and skill is required 
to conduct a business necessarily of limited extent. In such 
cases a higher than common rate of profit is necessary to 
yield only the common rate of remuneration. I.n a small 
sea-port town, a grocer will make forty or fifty per cent 
upon a stock of a five hundred dollars, while a considerable 
wholesale merchant in the same place will scarcely make 
eight or ten per cent upon a stock of ten thousand. The 
trade of the grocer may be necessary for the convenience of 
the inhabitants, and the narrowness of the market may not 
admit the employment of a larger capital in the business. 
The man, however, must not only live by his trade, but live 
by it suitably to the qualifications which it requires. Besides 
possessing a little capital he must be able to read, write and 
account, and must be a tolerable judge, too, of perhaps fifty 
or sixty different sorts of goods, their prices, qualities, and 
the markets where they are to be had cheapest. From one 
hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a year cannot be 
considered as too great a recompense for the labor of a 
person so accomplished. Deduct this from the seemingly 
great profits of his capital, and little more will remain, per- 
haps, than the ordinary profits of stock. The greater part 
of the apparent profit is, in this case, too, real wages. 

The great practical question in American social economy 



HOW PROFITS AFFECT THE LABOR QUESTION. 329 

is, how can there be made a fair distribution of profits? In 
all great productive industries in this country there seems 
to be a partnership of three parties : Labor, executive man- 
agement and capital. Now each of these is entitled to a 
fair compensation for the service rendered, and each is 
entitled to a share in the surplus fruits of their cooperation. 
Labor and executive capacity are not entitled to an equal 
share with capital, because capital assumes all the risk of 
loss by fire, by inadequate management, or by a break in 
the market, and the party of the partnership bearing this 
risk should have a larger share of the profit. Besides the 
amount of profits is generally due to the wisdom and energy 
of the party furnishing the capital, and this is another reason 
why capital should receive the greater share of profit. After 
due allowance for these considerations, however, there is a 
share which justly belongs to the labor, and which should 
be distributed among those who make up this third member 
of the firm, according to each laborer's merit and grade in 
the service rendered. 

The rising antagonism between labor and capital will be 
best counteracted, we believe, by measures adapted to secure 
a fairer distribution of profits on this basis. To devise the 
best measures for this will require much earnest study, and 
experiments carefully conducted with good-will and patience 
on both sides. No doubt it will be found that measures 
must be varied to suit different cases and circumstances. 
What works well in one case may not do so in another. 
Tact and common sense must be used to apply the principle 
which is one and common. There are obstacles in the way 
of the immediate adoption of such measures. False ideas on 
the part of both workmen and their employers must be cor- 
rected, mutual confidence must be established and common 
usage must be changed. These are things not to be accom- 
plished in a day. Yet there is good reason to believe that if 
attention is turned earnestly on the study of this specific 
object, obstacles will be overcome, measures will be defined 
and successfully applied, and the result will be more of 



330 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

justice, harmony and efificiency, in the actual operations of 
industry, and abiding rehef from dangers which threaten the 
peace and prosperity of the nation. 

What shall become with profits when once secured? 
They may become a part of the capital of the industry which 
produced them, or they may seek other investment. Safety 
is the first thing to be considered in investing profits. Agri- 
cultural investments are known to have great security, but 
the profits are usually low. Manufacturing investments 
ordinarily return larger profits, but with less security. These 
laws of safety and profit will prove the controlling forces in 
investing the profits secured from any business, and which 
may not be needed in prosecution of the business which 
produced them. Profits are the saved reward of industry, 
and should be handled very carefully, so as not to be lost. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

EXCHANGE. 

THIS fourth great factor in the economy of wealth, 
expresses the method by which products find their 
way from the producers to the consumers. 

Wealth is transferred from producers to consumers by 
manifold exchanges. The division of labor which increases 
production, necessitates exchange. With the wonderful 
growth of modern civilization, and the varied form assumed 
by industry, exchange has become a complicated and exten- 
sive piece of machinery ; so much so, that exchange holds 
the place of greatest importance in the science of poHtical 
economy. 

Exchange is a transaction in which two individuals mutu- 
ally and voluntarily transfer to each other the right of 
property, to a given amount, either in capital or labor. This 
transfer must be both mutual and voluntary by both parties, 
or else it is robbery by one party. If property, without the 
right of possession, be given in exchange, it is fraud. 

Distribution goes on with production, and both are 
frequently completed at the same time. So, too, exchange 
accompanies every step of production, and the same act is 
often one of production, of distribution, and of exchange. 
The products which are manufactured by any given firm are 
not usually those which they wish to consume, but these 
products are to find their way to persons wishing them, 
through the medium of exchange. 

Exchange itself is not without its own exclusive agents ; 
and has need for a vast employ of labor and skill to conduct 
its management with accuracy and honesty. A large portion 
of labor and capital is directly employed in the transfer and 
traffic of commodities. The merchant, the mariner, the 

381 



332 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

porter, while transferring values, increase, by their labor, the 
values so transferred and are themselves producers, claiming 
a share of the products. As the utility of a thing is not 
simply dependent on intrinsic qualities, but on the avail- 
ability of these qualities, the porter may add not less to the 
utility of an article than the manufacturer. No inconsider- 
able part of the fixed capital of any civilized nation is repre- 
sented in roads, in railroads, canals, docks, in the permanent 
improvements of navigation, in wagons, cars and ships. Nor 
are machinery and invention anywhere more efficacious in 
reducing the cost of products and multiplying the enjoy- 
ments of all classes, than here. The merchant is among the 
illustrations of the division of labor, and the resulting reduc- 
tion in cost. He does that cheaply for a whole community 
which must otherwise be done by each of its members, at a 
great expense. A large importation of needful and custom- 
ary commodities by one, is made to take the place of a much 
more laborious and partial supply, secured by each individ- 
ual, and though scarcely observed, the time saved and the 
additional utilities furnished are very great. No class is 
more effective in the interests of production than this class. 

Here, too, we have money, one of the most facile, most 
frequently employed and productive of instruments — the 
very language of commerce. Important, however, as is its 
office, there does not belong to it that necessity and omnipo- 
tence which it has ever possessed in the minds of its worship- 
ers. No questions in political economy require more careful 
thought, are more practical, than those of value and those 
of currency. The last is truly the life-blood of industry. If 
vitiated and reduced by fraudulent coin or worthless paper, 
no innate forces of production can compensate or correct its 
destructive influences ; but if an honest and reliable medium 
of exchange, the most essential condition of a healthy 
economic growth is met. 

It is often said that exchange may be either of commo- 
dity for commodity, as when one gives a table for a pair of 
boots; or of commodity for labor, as when one gives fifty 



THE MEANING OF VALUE. 333 

pounds of flour for a day's work at mowing ; or of labor for 
labor, as when a mason gives a day's work in exchange for 
a carpenter's work for a day. This is proper enough to 
indicate the precise form of the transaction ; but in reality 
it is not the labor itself, but the value in some form of 
wealth, the product of the labor which is contemplated. 

Value, then, is the principle term of this branch of polit- 
ical economy. The worth of value is determined by its 
utility and difficulty of attainment. The value of anything 
is its purchasing power ; the price of anything is its power 
to command gold or silver, or that which constitutes the 
currency of the country. Value may be expressed in any 
commodity whatever; price is expressed in one commodity 
only. Value, to be fully determined, demands a universal 
expression. 

The principles which determine value are not the same in 
all products. Difficulty of attainment, though a much more 
important cause in estimating value than utility, does not in 
all cases furnish a measurement. But as these two are the 
sole causes of value, we should naturally look to them, in 
their joint action, for a measure of its amount. Difficulty 
of attainment is resolvable into labor and abstinence, since 
these include all the danger incident to their employment, 
and in this cause of value we shall find a very general meas- 
ure of value. Though it is impossible to make labor the 
only, it is the chief, measure of value. 

The general arena of exchange is called the market, a 
term which signifies not so much a locality as the actual 
relation of demand to supply at the place and time contem- 
plated for making exchanges. By demand is meant the 
extent of desire for an article. Supply expresses the quan- 
tity of the article at hand to meet that desire. Between 
these two factors competition works continuous variations 
in the value of commodities. When demand is great in 
proportion to supply, value is enhanced by competition 
among the buyers. When supply is great in proportion to 
demand, value is reduced by competition among the sellers. 



334 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Value is a relative term. All goods sold are paid for in 
goods of another kind. Whoever sells a thing becomes in 
the act a purchaser of some other thing, and the value of 
each is simply what it brings in the trade. The values of 
all things can never, therefore, rise or fall at once. A rise 
of value on one side implies a fall on the other side. 

Here the distinction between value and price must be 
observed. Price is value expressed in terms of the single 
article money. If the amount of money in a country be 
suddenly increased, as was the case in the United States 
from 1 86 1 to 1865, the prices of all things will rise together, 
because money is cheapened. The prices of wheat and 
broadcloth may thus be doubled at the same time without 
changing the value of, either; it will take the same amount 
of wheat to buy a yard of broadcloth as before. If it takes 
twice as much wheat to buy a hat this year as it did last, the 
fact implies a change of value on one side or the other If 
the hat holds the same relation to all other articles as before, 
it is evident that wheat has for some reason declined in 
value. If all other articles must be doubled to buy the hat, 
it is evident that the hat has risen in value. 

The market value of a thing depends on the demand and 
supply ; rising as the demand rises, and falling as the supply 
rises. As a thing grows cheaper, however, under an increased 
supply, the demand increases in greater proportion, because 
every step downward in the value widens the circle of those 
who are able to buy the article. 

The necessity of exchange springs from the diversity of 
nature's resources, the diversity of human capacities and 
tastes, and the wide reach of human desires, all of which 
prescribe for human industry the principle of division of 
labor. As men advance in intelligence, their desires are 
multiplied ; at the same time, by discoveiy and invention, 
the resources of nature are unfolded in full proportion. 
Desire stimulates invention, and successful invention wakes 
new desires. There is no assignable limit to the development 
of either men's desires or nature's resources. 



THE COMSTOCK MINER. 335 

Out of man's social nature spring sympathies, attractions, 
interests, which widen his associations and multiply his 
opportunities as both a giver and receiver of good things. 
Hence comes a law of interdependence which forbids that 
any man should live either for or by himself alone. Thus 
human industry is varied, and each does that for which he 
is best fitted, or which he likes best, while mutual exchanges 
enable each to get what he wants by giving what he 
can spare. 

The importance of this cannot be overestimated. Not only 
the comforts of life to the individual, but the existence of 
society in its highest forms, depend on the ability of man 
through the medium of exchange, to draw supplies from the 
whole world. Without this, civilization would stagnate and 
progress would cease. 

The great boon of trade to the individual man lies in the 
fact that, with its aid he may labor where he lives, and 
yet, through a line of exchanges may effect, in a hundred 
different places and distant lands, the production he desires. 
Henry George has most eloquently put this fact when he 
says : The miner who, two thousand feet under ground, 
in the heart of the Comstock, is digging out silver ore, is, in 
effect, by virtue of a thousand exchanges, harvesting crops in 
valleys five thousand feet nearer the earth's centre ; chasing 
the whale through Arctic ice-fields ; plucking tobacco leaves 
in Virginia; picking coffee berries in Honduras; cutting 
sugar cane in the Hawaiian Islands; gathering cotton in 
Georgia, or weaving it in Manchester or Lowell ; making 
quaint wooden toys for his children in the Hartz mountains, 
or plucking, amid the green and gold of Los Angles orchards, 
the oranges which, when his shift is relieved, he will take 
home to his sick wife. The wages which he receives on 
Saturday night, at the mouth of the shaft, what are they but 
the certificates to all the world that he has done these things 
— the primary exchanges in the long series which transmutes 
his labor into the things he has really been laboring for? 

The activity of exchange has created a distinct depart- 



336 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

ment of useful industry, by which commodities are trans- 
ferred from the producers to the consumers, in such places, 
at such times and in such quantities as are most convenient. 
It involves labor and so adds to the cost of objects; it adds 
also to their desirableness, by bringing them within the 
reach of those whose wants are to be gratified. Thus in 
both ways it enhances their value to the benefit of both 
parties. By it the producer is helped to dispose of his 
products, and the consumer gets things just where and when 
and as they will best meet his wants. Obviously this labor 
will be most economically performed by persons who devote 
themselves exclusively to it, receiving a fair compensation 
for their service. This compensation is made up by a per- 
centage charged on the values transferred, of which each 
party pays a portion ; that is, the producer sells his products 
to the exchanger for something less than he would ask of 
the consumer directly, and the consumer pays the exchanger 
a little more than if he bought directly of the producer. 
But the expense of conducting the exchanges is far less than 
it would be without such intervention. 

Merchant is a general name for those who devote them- 
selves to the business of exchange, but the term embraces a 
great variety of agents. 

In the commerce of every community are to be recog- 
nized two great currents of trade — an outgoing current and 
an incoming current. The outgoing current bears away 
what a people have to spare ; the incoming current brings 
back what a people want. In a new country a retail mer- 
chant stands at the turning point where these currents meet. 
He gathers up in small quantities the surplus products of his 
neighborhood and starts them on the current of outgoing 
trade, to float, it may be, half round the world to find their 
ultimate consumers ; in exchange for these he dispenses to 
his neighbors small quantities of foreign products which 
they need. 

As population increases, and products are multipled, 
another agent appears on the ground, called a middle-man, 



THE DOCTRINE OF EXCHANGE. 337 

a produce buyer, a commission dealer. By arrangement he 
buys up for some house at a commercial centre the grain, 
the cotton, the wool, the pork, the butter, or whatever of one 
kind or of many kinds of produce may be ordered, and is 
paid by a percentage on the values purchased. 

To this list of agents must be added the whole class of 
those who have to do with money and credit, the instru- 
ments of exchange ; also, those who as underwriters and 
insurers distribute the risks, by land and by sea, involved 
in trade. 

There are some general doctrines of exchange which it is 
well to know. The first is, What constitutes the basis of the 
value of exchange ? 

If two men have created their respective products, and 
are prepared to exchange them, it is manifest that they will 
not commonly exchange them quantity for quantity, because 
a given amount of labor will procure a much larger amount 
of some products than of others. The same labor which 
will procure an ounce of gold will procure a hundred pounds 
of iron. Hence the gold miner will offer to exchange labor 
for labor: that is, an ounce of gold for a hundred weight of 
iron. And, if the miner of iron will not exchange on these 
terms, the miner of gold will procure his iron for himself; 
since, if he can thus procure it for himself by a less amount 
of labor than by exchange, he will do so. Hence it is that 
the general rate at which everything is exchanged is the 
amount of labor which it costs to produce it. 

A second doctrine of exchange is, that exchange does 
not add any new value to a commodity. When exchange 
takes charge of it, the producer has conferred the last value 
it is to have. 

The exchanger passes any commodity into the hands of 
the consumer just as he receives it from the producer. 
Hence, it is seen, that the more rapidly exchanges are made 
the better. The more rapidly they are made the less is the 
loss of interest, and the smaher the advance which the 
exchanger must charge for his labor. If a merchant pur- 
23 



338 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

chases to-day a thousand dollars' worth of iron, which he 
sells to-morrow, he charges us for his labor and skill, and 
adds only the interest for one day upon his capital. If he 
must keep the iron a whole year before he sell it, he must 
charge the interest of a whole year, or else he will be the 
loser by his operation. 

Nor is this all. If he sell his iron to-morrow, he may 
invest the same sum in iron and sell it again fifty times in 
the course of the year, and thus receive a profit fifty times a 
year upon the use of his skill and labor, while in the other 
case he receives this profit but once. Hence, when exchanges 
are rapid, he can afford to exchange at a less rate for his 
labor and skill than when they are slow; and hence brisk 
exchanges are for the benefit of both buyer and seller, and a 
benefit to one is a benefit to all. It is for this reason, among 
others, that we can frequently purchase at a cheaper rate in 
a large city than in a country town. And hence we see a 
reason why the profit upon one operation in some kinds of 
exchange is greater than that in others. The profits of the 
wholesale merchant on a pound of tea are, for instance, 
greater than those of the retail merchant. He who sends 
his capital to the East Indies, and receives in return a cargo 
of teas, must charge interest and risk for the whole time 
consumed from the day that he parts with his property until 
the day that he receives it again. This may be nearly two 
years. The retail merchant who purchases one of those 
chests of tea may sell it all in a week, and thus invest it fifty 
times in the course of a year. Now, if the profit on an 
exchange were as great in the one case as in the other, the 
annual gains of the retail merchant would be exorbitant. 
These are reduced by competition to the average level, and 
hence his gains on any single operation are much less than 
those of the wholesale merchant. 

Though the act of exchange adds nothing to the absolute 
value of a commodity, yet that commodity will command a 
higher price after it has passed through a channel of exchange 
than before it entered it. Exchange itself must be remun- 



RELATION BETWEEN EXCHANGE AND EDUCATION. 339 

erated. But this is a price that the buyer and seller are 
both willing to pay for convenience, and as the commodity 
is not modified in any way, it does not affect its value. 

A third doctrine has to do with the conditions according to 
which the frequency of exchange occurs. It is manifest 
that the more numerous are the exchange the better must 
it be for a community. As no one exchanges except to 
gratify his desires and to improve his condition, the 
more numerous the exchanges the greater the number of 
desires which will be gratified, and the more universally will 
the condition of a people be improved. It is also evident 
that facility of exchange is one of the greatest stimulants to 
production. If a man cannot transform his products into 
what he desires, he will labor for nothing but the mere 
necessaries of life. But in just so far as he is able by 
exchanging the products of his labor to procure objects of 
desire, his motives to industry will be quickened. And the 
same is true of nations. Everyone, whether poet, or philoso- 
pher, or traveler, in setting forth the prosperity of a country, 
has described its harbors thronged with ships, its roads cov- 
ered with merchandise, and its sails whitening every ocS^n. 
But all these are only so many forms of expressing the 
general fact that a nation's exchanges, both internal and 
external, are abundant and prosperous. 

Doctor Wayland says that a nation's exchanges will be 
frequent in proportion to the intelligence, wealth and moral 
character of a people. His presentation of this three-fold 
cause is a strong one. He says that exchanges will be 
frequent or unfrequent in proportion to the intelligence or 
ignorance of a people. It is only by the diffusion of knowl- 
edge that men ascertain how their desires may be gratified. 
It is by knowledge that the desires of man are brought into 
relation with the objects intended by his Creator for their 
gratification. Everyone knows how the dormant desire for 
exchange is awakened in the bosom of a child, the moment 
he enters a toy shop. Strangers rarely pass through the 
streets of a large city without being strongly, if not success- 



340 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

fully, tempted to lighten their pockets before the termina- 
tion of their journey. Every reader knows how quickly his 
desire for books is enkindled by passing a few minutes in a 
book store. And thus we see how instantaneously a desire 
for exchange arises in the breasts of savages as soon as they 
are brought into contact with civilized man. A multitude 
of objects for the gratification of desire, of which they were 
previously ignorant, is set before them ; and they are fre- 
quently stimulated to exchange to their own disadvantage. 

Knowledge is gained by observation, and a man rarely 
goes from home into another country, or into another sec- 
tion of the same country, without obtaining a knowledge of 
various conveniences of which he was before ignorant. 
Familiar intercourse between men of different pursuits con- 
duces to the same result. Newspapers filled with advertise- 
ments, circulated over every district of a country^ have, in 
this respect, a powerful effect. All these causes combine 
to show every individual what he can produce that other 
men want, and how he may by exchange procure from them 
what he wants himself. 

We see all this illustrated in every district separated by 
nature from the surrounding country, as a valley inclosed by 
mountains difficult of access, or an island which has but rare 
communication with the main land. The progress of such 
a population in the arts, and in possessing themselves of the 
conveniences of life, is always much less rapid than that of 
their more highly favored neighbors. They know but little 
of what is going on around them, and their desires are but 
feebly stimulated to improve their condition. 

Exchange will be lively in proportion to the productive- 
ness or w^ealth of a country. 

It has been already observed that simple desire in both 
parties is not enough to effect exchange. Each party must 
both possess and be willing to part with so large a part of 
the product as the other party may desire. Every man, 
nearly, has a desire for a horse and carriage ; and every man 
who raises horses and manufactures carriages is willing to 



WHAT CONDUCES TO EXCHANGE. 341 

exchange them for an equivalent. But, until every man has 
something to give for a horse and carriage, the exchange 
cannot be general. In proportion as a country is productive, 
men will have the means to purchase the things they desire, 
and this will enliven exchange. Thus, exchanges must 
always be most numerous in the most prosperous condition 
of a country; or, as every one knows, mercantile business is 
most prosperous — that is, exchanges are most abundant — 
when manufacturing, agricultural, and all other kinds of 
industry, are most productive. 

This same prinpple is of universal application. A good 
harvest in one country is a benefit to every other country; 
because the favored country desires a larger amount of the 
production of her neighbors, and has a larger fund where- 
with to pay for them. Hence the exchanges between such 
a country and every other country are increased. On the 
contrary, a famine or a war, or any other calamity in one 
country, is a calamity to every other country, because the 
unfortunate country wants fewer of the productions of its 
neighbors, since it has less wherewith to pay for them. 

Exchange will be active in proportion to the moral char- 
acter of a people. Here moral philosophy and industrial 
philosophy again join to argue the importance of universal 
morality. 

Individual morality is highly favorable to exchange, inas- 
much as it lessens the liability to fraud, and, of course, the 
risk to which exchanges are exposed. No one will, if he can 
avoid it, trade with a knave. In proportion to the prevalence 
of knavery will be the disinclination to exchange. 

On the general moral character of a people depend the 
equity of their laws, and, of course, the full enjoyment of 
the right of property. One party frequently parts with his 
property to-day, on condition of receiving the property of 
.his neighbor a month hence. Here is a liability to fraud. 
Unless the one party have, by means of just and equitable 
law, the power of enforcing contracts, exchanges will be 
greatly restricted. 



342 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

On the morality and intelligence of a people will greatly 
depend the freedom of its civil constitutions; that is, the 
accuracy with which it limits the power of society, over the 
person and property of the individual. When these are 
improperly understood, or insufficiently guarded, the prop- 
erty of the citizen is liable to suffer from the avarice or the 
oppression of rulers. To this evil property undergoing 
exchange is specially liable. Exchange exposes to the view 
of the public the possessions of the parties, and, of course, 
enables a tyrant to seize upon them with greater certainty. 
For this reason exchanges are frequently, under bad govern- 
ments, made in secret ; and for this reason under such a 
government they are always as few as possible, and at great 
expense to the consumer. 

Exchange is affected greatly by a stagnation of business. 
For this there are several causes. It may arise from a dimin- 
ished desire for a particular product. Thus the decrease of 
the Catholic religion, during the wars of the French revolu- 
tion, diminished the desire for fish, which the Catholics eat 
in Lent and on fast days. This produced a stagnation of 
business in the fish trade. 

It may arise from change of fashion. Thus, when shoe- 
strings were substituted for shoe-buckles, the demand for 
shoe-buckles ceased ; the manufacturers of shoe-buckles were 
thrown out of employment, and there was a stagnation of 
business in this kind of trade. 

Stagnation in business may arise from a temporary fail- 
ure in production. Thus, if the crop of sugar should be 
reduced one half, there would be a stagnation in the sugar 
business; that is, there would be but half the quantity of 
sugar to be exchanged, and half the quantity of other things 
could be exchanged for it ; in other words, half the number 
or amount of exchanges would be made. And, in general, 
the failure of any crop, or the diminution of any kind of 
production, must cause a stagnation of business in that 
article itself, and also in whatever is usually exchanged for it. 

A stagnation in business, greatly reducing exchange, may 



A NATURAL TARIFF. 343 

arise from the inability of one of the parties desiring to make 
the exchange. If a nation is able to produce but one million 
dollars of profits, it can purchase but one million dollars' 
worth of foreign products. 

A stagnation of business, and a consequent cutting down 
in exchange, may be the effect of legislation. Suppose the 
importation of coffee into this country be a million pounds 
per annum, but if a heavy duty be laid on coffee, which will 
double its price, the consumption will be diminished one 
half, and consequently the exchange will be cut down one 
half for this one commodity. 

A last general doctrine relative to exchange, affecting it 
alike everywhere, is, that duties on imports can have no 
other than a depressing effect on exchange. Their only 
effect must be to raise the price of the products and, of 
course, to diminish the ability in both parties to exchange. 
Every one knows that the exchanges between two places are 
diminished by any natural obstacle to communication. If a 
road were so bad that it cost five dollars per hundred weight 
to transport merchandise between two places, every one 
knows that exchanges between these places would be fewer 
than they would be if the road were improved, so that trans- 
portation could be effected for twenty-five cents per hundred 
weight. Now, it makes no difference whether this additional 
four dollars and seventy-five cents be the result of the bad- 
ness of the road, or of a transit duty between the two places. 
The diminution of exchange which it causes will be precisely 
the same. In a severe winter, our northern harbors are 
closed for v/eeks or months by the ice. This is a natural 
tariff, and imposes a large protecting duty, inasmuch as 
exchanges must be effected, if they be effected at all, at a 
vastly greater price than in summer. All legislative restric- 
tions have the same effect. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

MONEY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF EXCHANGE. 

NO man can wholly supply his own wants, by directly 
exchanging his labor for the things to gratify his 
wants. He supplies the greater part of them by trading his 
labor through some representative of exchange. 

But when the division of labor first began to take place, 
this power of exchanging must frequently have been very 
much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man. 
we shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he 
himself has occasion for, while another has less. The former 
consequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to 
purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter should 
chance to have nothing that the former stands in need of, no 
exchange can be made between them. The butcher has 
more meat in his shop than he himself can consume, and the 
brewer and the baker would each be willing to purchase a 
part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, 
except the different productions of their respective trades, 
and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and 
beer which he has immediate occasion for. No exchange 
can, in this case, be made between them. He cannot be 
their merchant, nor they his customers ; and they are all of 
them thus mutually less serviceable to one another. In 
order to avoid the inconvenience of such situations, every 
prudent man in every period of society, after the first estab- 
lishment of the division of labor, must naturally have 
endeavored to manage his affairs in such a manner as to 
have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his 
own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or 
other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to 
refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry. 

344 



THINGS USED AS MONEY. 345 

Many different commodities, it is probable, were succes- 
sively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In 
the rude ages of society^ cattle are said to have been the 
common instrument of commerce; and though they must 
have been a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find 
things were frequently valued according to the number of 
cattle which had been given in exchange for them. The 
armor of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine oxen; but 
that of Glaucus cost an hundred oxen. Salt at one time 
was the common instrument of exchange in Abyssinia ; a 
species of shells was used on the coast of India ; dried cod 
was the money of Newfoundland a century and more ago ;, 
tobacco was used in Virginia for the same purpose, and 
sugar in the West Indies. In some countries leather and 
even hides have been used. In the territory of the Hudson 
Bay Company the beaver-skin is the unit of value, and their 
money-table runs thus: "Three martens are equal to one 
beaver, one white fox to two beavers, one black fox or bear 
to four beavers, a rifle to fifteen beavers." In Burmah, lead 
was used ; in Russia, platinum. In Scotland, formerly, nails 
were used; among the Chinese, pieces of silk; in Tartary, 
cubes of pressed tea. In ancient Greece it was cattle. In 
the early age of the patriarchs it was gold or silver bullion, 
carried about in bags and weighed instead of counted. Iron 
was the common instrument of exchange among the Spar- 
tans; copper among the ancient Romans; and leather in 
ancient Carthage. In Central Africa it was bark; in old 
Britain, the money was slaves. The original inhabitants of 
this country, as we learn from the uncovering of mounds and 
exhumation of subterranean cities, used mica and bone and 
iron as a standard of payment. With the Indians it was 
shells. 

But in all countries there was early an irresistible impulse 
in the direction of metals. Metals cannot only be kept with 
as little loss as any other commodity, scarce anything being 
less perishable than they are, but they can likewise, without 
any loss, be divided into any number of parts, and by fusion 



346 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

those parts can easily be reunited again; a quality which 
no other equally durable commodity possesses, and which 
more than any other quality renders them fit to be the 
instruments of commerce and circulation. The man who 
wanted to buy salt and had nothing to give in exchange but 
cattle, would be obliged to purchase salt to the value of a 
whole ox at a time. If, instead of cattle, he had metals to 
give in exchange he could easily proportion the quantity of 
the metal to the precise amount of salt for which he had 
immediate use ; hence the convenience of the metals. 

As the civilized countries gradually settled upon the 
metals as the best medium for exchange, it was found neces- 
sary, in order to prevent abuses, to facilitate exchanges, and 
thereby to encourge all sorts of industry and commerce, to 
affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of such particular 
metals as were in those countries commonly made use of to 
purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and of 
those public offices called mints; institutions exactly of the 
same nature with those of the alnagers and stampmasters 
of woolen and linen cloth. All of them are equally meant 
to ascertain, by means of public stamp, the quantity and 
uniform goodness of those different commodities when 
brought to market. 

The public stamps of this kind that were affixed to the 
current metals seem in many cases to have been intended to 
ascertain, what it was both most difificult and most import- 
ant to ascertain, the goodness or fineness of the metal, and 
to have resembled the sterling mark which is at present 
afifixed to plate and bar silver, or the Spanish mark which is 
sometimes afifixed to ingots of gold, and which being struck 
only upon one side of the piece, and not covering the 
whole surface ascertains the fineness but not the weight of 
the metal. Abraham weighs to Ephron the four hundred 
shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay for the field of 
Machpelah. 

It is in this manner that money has become, in all civil- 
ized nations, the universal instrument of commerce, by the 



M^i 



AN ADVANTAGE OF MONEY. 347 

intervention of which goods of all kinds are bought and 
sold, or exchanged for one another. 

In this way it is a great convenience, serves a vast variety 
of wants, and saves a great deal of labor. It substitutes a 
general for a particular article. He who is possessed of a 
particular article and wishes to exchange it for another, must 
not merely find a person possessed of the second article, but 
one both possessed of it and wishing to barter it for the first. 
Each has only the limited purchasing power of his own com- 
modity, still further restricted by the necessity of finding 
another whose desires are the precise counterpart of his own. 
An intermediate agent like the merchant would, indeed, in 
part relieve this embarrassment ; but it is only through 
money that each comes into possession of an agent possessed 
of a general purchasing power that can command everything' 
everywhere. It is sufficient for the seller, that his own 
product is anywhere wanted ; this want, through the mer- 
chant, represents itself at his own door, or in his own com- 
munity, and to the extent of the value of the product he 
receives that which commands any utility he may choose. 
As the wheel of exchange revolves he puts on anything he 
will and receives a ticket which, to the amount on its face, 
allows him to take off from that wheel anything that he will. 
His particular commodity gave him an order on some as yet 
unknown person, who should possess what he wished, and 
was willing to receive this product in return. This order is 
now changed into a general order, and may be presented to 
any person at pleasure. 

Money also generalizes the purchasing power, not only in 
place, but in time. A perishable commodity is exchanged 
for an imperishable medium, and the power of purchase 
locked up in this form may be retained at the pleasure of 
the holder. It also condenses and makes divisible that 
power. A crowded barn may have a less command of 
utilities than a moderately filled pocket-book ; and the 
house, which was one in the sale, may now, in the money 
which represents it, divide itself many hundred times, and 



348 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

roam in all directions in search of enjoyments. Money in 
the hand of the holder is a pliant agent that unites or 
divides its forces as the exigency demands. It is an indus- 
trious agent which works at all times. If a man had wheat, 
there would be but a naked chance that he should find some 
one willing to loan it and return it with interest ; probably 
he would be compelled to keep it with waste and damage ; 
transform it into money, and from that hour it may earn, 
and, like a faithful slave, will pay in its wages. If there 
were a hundred commodities, all in equal demand, the 
chance that he who possessed one could make a loan would 
be represented by one, while his chance who possessed 
money, and thereby commanded them all, would be rep- 
resented by one hundred. Hence almost all loans take 
place in money. 

Money is the constant medium in which values are 
expressed and balanced. Through money the whole ex- 
change of products, in all their varieties, come under the 
measurement of one table, and everything resolved into 
dollars and cents is rapidly weighed with every other. 
Without this, no accuracy, no uniformity, no general mar- 
ket price, could well be secured in the transfer of values. 

Money represents a universal standard of value, but does 
not establish that value. The legal stamp on a piece of 
money does not occasion the value. It only marks it ; and 
if it marks it either above or below the true value — that 
value which the natural forces at work have already assigned 
the metal contained in the coin — only the utmost despotism 
can establish or sustain this fictitious value, and that only 
within a very limited circle, and for a restricted period. The 
two measuring causes of value are cost of production and 
the supply and demand. Values, as dependent on supply 
and demand, are usually subject to much wider and more 
constant fluctuations than those arising from cost of produc- 
tion. Anything whose supply was not large and strictly 
limited might have sufficient value to constitute a medium 
of exchange. If the quantity of gold now in the world 



COST OF PRODUCTION AFFECTS VALUE. 349 

were left to us, but all further supplies cut off, it would, for 
the time being, retain its present value, as defined by the 
cost of production. Shortly, however, as the quantity came 
to be diminished by loss and wear, and the demand for it in 
the currency and consumption of luxury to be increased, its 
value would come under the action of the equation of supply 
and demand ; and though by increased value it would still 
meet and discharge all the functions of exchange, this neces- 
sary and constant rise would be an element of perpetual 
disturbance and error. Even irredeemable paper might, 
within the limits of a single country, have circulation if its 
quantity were by arbitrary power so limited as to be kept 
constantly within the demand. If this second measure of 
value is to be the basis of a currency, it is by no means 
necessary that the medium should have any intrinsic utility, 
or utility for any other purpose ; it is sufificient that it has 
utility in this one direction, and that this utility is forced 
into a high value by the constant action of the demand on 
the supply. 

The cost of production affects value in equal proportion 
to its degree. If a metal is obtained from a large variety of 
places ; if these are either possessed of nearly equal fertility, 
or constitute a scale, in which the difficulty of attainment 
passes up by slight and nearly regular intervals, while the 
demand is such as to keep the labor of production constantly 
employed on the more difficult and uniform mines ; then it 
is evident that a cost of production, either in itself uniform, 
or ranging, in its higher state, at about the same point on 
the scale of difficulty, would occasion a nearly uniform value. 
Gold and silver are so obtained. The sources are many, and 
though the fertility of some of the more favored mines may 
make them the means of large revenues, the demand is still 
so great as to force the production into those which are more 
difficult and uniform in their returns. All great fluctuations 
have arisen from the introduction of new and unexpected ele- 
ments. The discovery of America, by the large amount of the 
precious metals already accumulated therein, and the greater 



350 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

fertility of its mines, greatly reduced the value of gold and 
silver. As soon, however, as these new resources became 
practically measured and wrought into the general estimate, 
a value nearly firm was restored to these metals. New 
« explorations have, down to the very present, occasioned new 
fluctuations. But, as the world shall be more thoroughly 
known, and its surface harvest gathered, the cost of produc- 
tion will tend to greater uniformity, with a corresponding 
steadiness of value. 

The large amount of gold and silver now constituting the 
currency of civilized nations, acts between the supply and 
demand, like a heavy balance-wheel between the force and 
resistance, reducing all sudden impulses, and retaining an 
equable and working state, when the power is for a moment 
withdrawn. The yearly waste and the yearly supply are 
both very small, in comparison with the accumulated hoards 
of centuries, and any increase of one or diminution of the 
other, for a limited period, can only affect, by a very slight 
fraction, the relation of gold and silver to the uses of the 
world. The gold and silver of the arts, and of luxury, the 
plate and the ornaments, constitute a reservoir, from which, 
on any augmentation of value, a supply will immediately 
begin to flow, and to which, on any reduction of value, a 
return stream will bear away, from the clogged wheels of 
currency, the surperfluous and disturbing element. The 
small annual stream, then, which keeps good the supply of 
the precious metals, has a double safeguard, in the reservoir 
which the arts afford, whereby to make equal its spring tide 
and summer flow, and also in the very weight of that wheel 
of currency on which it acts. 

It is the measuring function of money which renders its 
concealed fluctuations of value so harmful, and sometimes 
disastrous. It is as if some one should, by some strange 
perversity of honesty, secure by secret agents, all rules of 
carpenters, and all sticks and lines of measurement in the 
country, and at a given time, shorten them by one inch. 
At once every person would find his property apparently 



MONEY NOT WEALTH. 



351 



changed, and every uncompleted contract would be changed 
in its requirements. 

The real object of all trade is to effect an exchange of 
commodities. In this exchange money is the medium. And 
the cost or price of money employed in every exchano-e is 
equal to the cost or price of the article which is exchanged 
for it. If a barrel of flour in Lima be exchanged for ten 
ounces of silver, the cost of producing the flour and of trans- 
porting it to Lima is equal to the cost of producing the 
silver and transporting it to the same place. If a barrel of 
flour in New York be exchanged for seven ounces of silver, 
the cost and transportation of the one at the place of 
exchange, is equal to that of the other. If the flour merchant 
wishes for a thousand ounces of silver, he can procure it 
more cheaply by producing the flour than he can by going 
to the mines of Mexico and working it out from the ore. 
And if the miner wishes for flour he can procure it more 
cheaply by working in the mine than by attempting to raise 
wheat and manufacture flour on the mountains of Potosi. 

Money in itself is not wealth ; but because it represents 
value it has often been identified in men's minds with wealth. 
They have been ready to suppose that an accumulation of 
the precious metals preeminently rendered a nation rich, and 
that their deficiency was both the result and occasion of 
hopeless poverty. This, like avarice, is a fallacy of the 
senses, and has been strengthened by the fact 'that indi- 
vidual wealth shows itself in the possession and ready com- 
mand of gold and silver. A lurking belief in the peculiar 
efificacy and intrinsic value of money above other products, 
has made nations reluctant to suffer its exportation and 
desirous to encourage its importation. It has been only of 
recent date that men have been willing to leave the distribu- 
tion of the precious metals to natural forces ; and these 
natural forces of trade strew the precious metals evenly over 
the globe, and by their very equality make them like the 
fertilizing deposits of the Nile. 

Scarcely any other product is of so little value as gold or 



352 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

silver, if accumulated in any country, by special or legislative 
effort, beyond the share u^hich trade would naturally have 
furnished. Unlike most products, these metals, save a lim- 
ited utility in the arts, meet no desire. Their first use is for 
currency, their second for luxury ; and in both of these uses 
a limited supply is as efificient as a more abundant one. Cur- 
rency, far from being benefited by forcing full its circulation, 
immediately depletes its plethoric channels by a correspond- 
ing reduction of value, and the apparent gain is to the senses 
only. We have more weight, but less value in the same 
weight ; more coins, but less worth in each coifi. Nor is this 
all ; not only is there a corresponding loss of value by push- 
ing the supply beyond the demand, but a currency cut ofT 
from the world's exchange, resting on its own narrow basis, 
becomes far more liable to fluctuations. The artificial bar- 
riers may at any moment give way, and then, like head 
waters, gold and silver rush out with great injury to existing 
interests, the unit of calculation in debt and credit being 
entirely altered. So, also, the gain for purposes of luxury is 
not so real as it seems. Gold plate does not depend for its 
value on its intrinsic superiority, but on the estimation of 
men ; and just in proportion as it is multiplied, will men 
cease to esteem it, and it will fall in value. No product 
which ministers to the necessities or ordinary enjoyments of 
life fails, by its multiplication, in a proportionate degree to 
benefit men ; yet every needful product has been neglected 
for the acquisition of gold, which obtained, has lost a large 
share of its utility. 

If metallic money be taken as the basis, it is not difificult 
to understand what is a real scarcity, and what an abundance 
of money. We have seen that money, like any other com- 
modity, is liable to the operation of the laws of supply and 
demand. 

To accomplish a given amount of exchange, a certain 
value in money is required and in ordinary times this value 
always exists. And, the exchanges remaining the same, we 
cannot employ for this purpose more than this amount of 



WHAT PRODUCES SCARCITY OF MONEY. 353 

value. If a quantity equal to one thousand ounces of silver, 
or of one thousand bushels of wheat, be required to perform 
the exchanges of a certain community, we cannot employ 
more than this amount of value. If we increase the quantity, 
we shall only decrease the value proportionally. If such a 
country be insulated from other countries, and we introduce 
into its circulation one thousand additional ounces of silver, 
equal to one thousand additional bushels of wheat, the value 
of the whole two thousand will be just equal to that of the 
one thousand ounces before ; that is, the value will not alter. 
If, on -the other hand, from such a country thus insulated we 
remove half the circulating medium, the remaining half will 
accomplish the purpose of the whole ; that is, it will double 
in value. This is evident, because there are neither more 
nor less exchanges to be made than before, and a variation 
in the instrument does not vary the amount of the work 
which the necessities of the community require to be done. 
If there be a given amount of yarn to be woven by twenty 
looms, the quantity will not be increased by employing forty 
looms. And if we employ forty we must work all of them 
but half the time ; that is, each one will be of half its original 
value. If the work be doubled, we must work them by day 
and by night ; that is, each one will be worth twice as much 
as before. But manifestly the quantity of work to be done 
being given, it can never be affected by varying the quantity 
of the instruments by which it is accomplished. 

Now suppose the exchanges in a given community be 
equal to fifty millions annually, and that there are required 
to effect these exchanges one million ounces of silver, and 
that this quantity of silver actually exists in its possession. 
Under these circumstances there will be neither a plenty nor 
a scarcity of money, and it will be neither exported nor 
imported. But suppose that, owing to a very productive 
harvest, or some rapid improvement in the productiveness 
of human labor, the amount of products to be exchanged 
reaches seventy-five millions. Here will arise a scarcity of 
money. There will be more exchanges than can be accom- 
23 



^£M... 



354 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

plished by the instrument by which they are to be effected. 
The price of money will rise because the supply is limited : 
that is, the price of other commodities will fall, and every- 
thing will be cheap ; though there cannot be purchased 
more wool, meat or cotton with a barrel of flour than last 
year, there can be purchased more wool, meat or cotton 
with the money which a barrel of flour brought last year. 

By the same illustration we can see what is meant by too 
much money. If, while exchanges were at fifty millions, 
and one million ounces of silver were necessary to effect 
them, a mine were discovered by which the quantity in 
circulation was doubled, the price of silver would fall, and 
commodities would cost twice their usual price. 

The ebb and flow of the trade of a country will regulate 
this, as it does all other commodities. Hence it is seen that 
a plentifulness or a scarcity of money forms no occasion 
which calls for the interference of government, but that it is 
a matter which, if left alone, will regulate itself. When 
money is really scarce, there is no need of prohibiting its 
exportation ; for no one will be so unwise as to export it. 
When it is abundant, it is useless to prohibit its exportation, 
because it cannot be prevented ; and because, if it could be 
prevented, by preventing it we should deprive ourselves of 
the only method in our power of alleviating the evils which 
we suffer. The precious metals are relatively abundant in 
the states of South America ; that is, they need other kinds 
of capital more than they need this. How absurd a policy 
would it be to forbid the exportation of those metals, and 
thus deprive themselves of all the conveniences of other 
countries, nay, of the very means on which progress in civili- 
zation and the arts, and in the real accumulation of wealth, 
depends. 

Hence the notion that the plentifulness or scarcity of 
money is an unfailing indication of the prosperity or of the 
adversity of a country is in the highest degree fallacious. If 
the scarcity result from an increased productiveness of labor, 
it is an indication of prosperity ; just as the business of 



EVIL OF TOO MUCH, OR TOO LITTLE, MONEY. 355 

weaving is most prosperous, when the weavers have more 
work than they can do. If it result from a casual withdraw- 
ment of specie, it is an ambiguous indication and its effect 
upon the country will depend upon the use which is made 
of that which is sent abroad. If it be employed in wars or 
in other unproductive consumption, it is just so much loss ; 
.and it matters not whether this amount of loss be in silver, 
or gold, or copper, or tea, or coffee, or cotton. If it be well 
invested and return in the form of a profitable addition to 
the capital of the country, it is just as much a source of gain 
as though the same profit were made upon any other article. 
It is profitable for an individual to give one thousand dollars 
for what is worth fifteen hundred dollars, although, for a 
month afterward he be obliged to live somewhat more 
economically. And what is profitable for the individual is 
profitable for the nation. 

An overplus of money may have an evil effect on the 
industry of a country by increasing the prices of production 
and of labor, and by this raising only the apparent value of 
property a spirit of mere speculation is produced, and thou- 
sands rush into or enlarge their business. The increasing 
prices are mistaken for an increasing demand, and men 
-count upon a career of prosperity. In the end the same 
business would be done, only with more money, and false 
values would be created. 

Another evil effect of too much money is, that it is apt 
to place the country at a disadvantage in relation to other 
countries, for the high cost of its commodities would largely 
prevent their export, and the redundancy of money, even if 
it is in gold, cannot be exported except at a loss, since it 
must go as bullion and not as coin. 

Again, too little money may result in evil to a country. 
A scarcity of money will clog exchange, and diminish the 
circulation of production. If there is not money enough in 
the country to purchase more than the mere necessities of 
life, the poor class cannot indulge in luxuries, and this class 
of products will not go into general circulation. 



356 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

A scarcity of money will increase the rate of interest and 
discourage business. When prices fall and wages are low, 
men think there is to be a general prostration, and they will 
hesitate to enter business or to increase their risks. The 
final result here will be that all prices must adjust themselves 
to a lower scale. 

Another, and the most serious effect of a scarcity of 
money, is the hardship imposed by it on the debtor class. 
This is always a large class, and grows in a period of finan- 
cial prosperity, when public confidence enlarges the amount 
of private credit. As a deficiency of money raises its rela- 
tive value, the debtor finds his debts increased, while the 
property for which he incurred the debt shrinks in price. 
The opposite line of effects follows a redundancy of money, 
which entails a hardship upon the creditor class. During 
the war, mortgages upon western farms to an immense 
amount were paid off with paper money worth no more 
than one half the value of the money loaned. On the other 
hand, debts contracted and mortgages given during the late 
years of the war, or in the years which immediately followed, 
while the great volume of paper money was still afloat, had 
to be paid at a later date in money worth as much again in 
value as that which was borrowed. 

There is not as much money used in international trade 
as is supposed. A large portion of foreign trade consists in 
exporting goods, and, to tlfe extent of the proceeds, pur- 
chasing a return cargo ; so in this case there is no exchange 
of money in the transaction. Again, to a large extent, 
commodities are imported by each nation to meet the 
demand, and thus a double indebtedness is occasioned. 
These two classes of debts are made, as far as possible, to 
cancel each other without any transfer of money. The 
goods imported into the United States from England occa- 
sion here certain foreign liabilities, and those exported to 
England a corresponding class of debts. A class of brokers 
or intermediate agents buy and sell the bills mutually drawn 
on England and the United States. Those on England, 



LITTLE MONEY USED IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 357 

debtors in the United States repurchase and forward to 
their creditors in England, and thus the EngHsh debtor and 
creditor are paired against each other. By a precisely 
similar process, the American debtor and creditor are intro- 
duced, and nothing remains to be adjusted but that remnant 
of indebtedness in one country to which nothing is found to 
correspond in the other. 

If the purchases in America equal those in England, they 
mutually compensate each other, and in the traffic of bills 
the supply and demand, in both countries, will remain in 
equilibrium without any advance of price on the part of the 
bills of either country. Exchange is then said to be at par, 
and there is no tendency in trade to an inequality. If such 
a tendency arises, the indebtedness on the one side being 
greater than that on the other, in the broker's mart of bills 
those of one country are in deficiency, and rise in value; 
those of the other country are in excess, and sink in value. 
Exchange is now said, to the extent of the per cent express- 
ing the rise, to be in favor of that country whose bills have 
risen. The rise of price in bills drawn on one country neces- 
sarily involves a corresponding depression in those return 
bills whose excess has disturbed the equation. If the 
exchange between the United States and England is one 
per cent against the former, then, in England, the bills on 
the United States will be at one per cent discount, and 
in the United States those on England at one per cent 
premium. As most bills have some little time to run, this 
state of exchange need not necessarily occasion any transfer 
of coin. The broker may buy in the bills, expecting that 
a more favorable exchange may arise, which will enable him 
to cancel his home by his foreign bills. 

The very state of the exchange tends to aid him in this 
and to restore itself to par. On all exports from the United 
States, at the above rate of exchange, there would be realized 
an additional one per cent, since the bills representing the 
indebtedness would sell at an advance. All imports, on 
the other hand, would suffer a corresponding loss in the 



358 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

discount on the bills by which they were met. Hence, to the 
extent of the adverse exchange, exports would be encour- 
aged, imports discouraged, and an effort made to restore the 
equality. This force would be sufficient to overcome all 
transient and superficial causes, and the exchange would 
restore itself by its own action and without any transfer of 
coin. 

If, however, after successive delays the exchange fails to 
restore itself, and it becomes evident that remittances must be 
made, the adverse per cent will rapidly rise to meet this new 
expense, and a more violent effort at restoration thus be set 
on foot. The first variation in the rate of exchange springs 
from the natural and inevitable fluctuations of trade, and 
readily corrects itself ; the second and more violent indicates 
a permanent derangement. This may be an excess of trade 
on the part of the indebted country, or a want of equality in 
the value of the currency of the two countries — the cur- 
rency of the one being too replete in reference to that of 
the other. If the difficulty arises from the first cause, the 
necessity of payment being forced on the indebted country, 
will either restrict its demand or its ability to obtain credit. 
If from the second cause, coin passing from one country to 
the other will tend to restore their respective currencies to 
an equality of value. If for any reason the money of one 
country has become more plenty, in reference to the amount 
of exchange to be performed by it, than that of the country 
with which it is trading, there will relatively be a rise of 
price in the first and a depression of price in the second. 
This will be regulated in course of time by the natural forces 
of trade, and the natural tendency of the money markets of 
the entire world to seek a general level of values. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

SPECIE AS THE BASIS FOR MONEY. 

THE necessity for money as a circulating medium for 
exchange, is clearly evident, when the difficulties of 
the exchange of commodities, as the farmer exchanging pork 
for salt, is considered. 

Suppose a producer to have prepared his product for con- 
sumption. If he be obliged to exchange in kind, it may be a 
long time before he find another person who desires the 
article which he has created. If he be obliged to wait long, 
his product, if perishable, will be either destroyed or deterio- 
rated. He must go in search of a purchaser; and if he at 
length find one, he may have consumed in the search as 
much time as the article originally cost. This must be 
added to the cost of the article, or else he will be a Ibser. 
But, by this additional cost, the product is no better; it is 
only dearer. This must, of course, decrease the demand ; 
and hence, by all this additional cost, both parties are poorer. 

But it is to be remembered that the producer not only 
wants to part with his product, but also to part with it for 
some definite object of desire. He who has raised wheat, 
does not wish simply to part with his wheat, but also to 
receive in exchange for it, tea, or coffee, or iron, or salt, or 
clothing. He must, therefore, in order to effect the exchange 
which he desires, not only find some one who wishes for 
wheat, but also some one who is able to give him, in return, 
the precise product he desires. If he desire clothing in 
return, it will not be sufficient to find some one who offers 
him bread, or shoes, or butcher's meat. This, also, increases 
the difficulty of exchange, and of course, the labor and the 
cost necessary to eiTect it. 

But this is not all. Men who wish to exchange, do not 

359 



360 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

always wish to exchange in equal amounts. A grazier who 
brings a fatted ox to market, may find persons enough who 
want a few pounds of beef, but very few who want a whole 
ox. The grazier cannot divide his ox, and give a part of it 
for a few pounds of coffee or tea; nor, probably, does 'he 
require one fourth of the value of the ox in any article which 
can be purchased in the town where it may be sold. He 
wishes to obtain, by the sale of the ox, additional provender 
for the support of his remaining herd. This he cannot, per- 
haps, procure except in the country; or if he could procure 
it, the merchant who owns the provender would not want a 
whole ox for meat. In this way, exchange would be arrested ; 
or must be made very rarely, and at great cost, and under 
every possible disadvantage. 

Here, then, arises the great convenience of some article 
as a medium through which exchange of commoditites is to 
be effected. 

Suppose that the producer can always exchange his 
product, not for the article which he immediately wants, but 
for some other article which is universally wanted, and wanted 
at all times, and in all quantities. As soon as the producer 
has, by exchange, possessed himself of this commodity, he 
may then, on account of its universal desirableness, easily 
procure by another exchange whatever he may need. In 
this manner, by means of two exchanges made at the same 
instant, the labor of days or of weeks may be accomplished. 
Thus, if salt were this commodity and every one wanted salt 
in all quantities, at all times and at a fixed value ; by exchang- 
ing everything for salt, and then exchanging salt for what- 
ever we might desire, the labor of exchanges would be vastly 
diminished. 

This convenience, however, will be much increased if the 
article of universal desire be small in bulk ; because, in this 
case, much of the labor of transportation will be avoided. 
Were the lace-maker obliged to exchange his lace for salt, he 
would be obliged to furnish himself with a cart, in which to 
receive his payment. And thus, in general, instead of a 



ADVANTAGES OF A CIRCULATING MEDIUM. 361 

purse in which to carry our money, we should require for 
this purpose the use of a wagon and horses. 

If this circulating medium be also minutely divisible, it 
will possess still greater conveniences. The producer may 
then part with all, or with a part of his product ; and he can 
procure with a circulating medium as small a portion of that 
which he wishes in exchange as he may choose. The farmer, 
instead of exchanging one part of his wheat for tea, another 
part for coffee and another part for clothing ; or else exchang- 
ing it all for tea and then endeavoring to find customers for 
his tea, may exchange it all for the circulating medium, pro- 
cure as much of each as he pleases, or, if he choose, make no 
further exchange whatever. 

The case is still stronger when labor is one of the articles 
to be exchanged. The laborer will now no longer be obliged 
to labor at any price for him who is able to give him in 
exchange what he immediately wants ; but he may labor for 
any one who will give him in return this object of general 
desire. Hence he is now at liberty to labor for him who 
will give him the best wages ; that is, where his industry and 
skill will be employed most advantageously to himself. 
With this he can procure whatever he wants, in such portions 
as he may desire. 

The practicability of the division of labor now becomes 
immediately apparent. If the laborer be paid in the article 
of universal desire, it makes no difference whether the person 
who produces what he wants, needs, or does not need, his 
particular product. He wants the object of universal desire, 
and this is enough; for by this the laborer can effect 
exchanges with him or with any one else. If he can procure 
this circulating medium by means of pin-heads, or knife- 
handle rivets, this is all that he wants. He is now as inde- 
pendent as though he produced that which every one wants ; 
since by means of what he produces he can procure that 
which every one wants. Thus we see that every man is in 
this manner able to devote himself to that in which his skill 
will be most productive to himself. And all men thus 



362 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

making the first exchange in this object of universal desire, 
all are equally independent ; and all are able, in the most 
successful manner, to avail themselves of the fruits of their 
own industry. 

Now whatever it is that performs the ofifice of facilitating 
exchanges is called a circulating medium, and so great has 
been the need of some such instrument that even the 
rudest nations have always been found adopting some such 
contrivance. 

In all civilized nations the metals, gold, silver and copper, 
have come to be regarded with special fitness to serve the 
purpose of a circulating medium. They possess certain 
qualities, peculiarly combined, which make them adapted to 
meet the functions of money. When these three metals are 
prepared and marked for that purpose, they are called specie. 

There are several qualities which combine to make these 
metals the standard specie money of the world. 

That which would be used as a circulating medium must 
be universally desired. The object of a circulating medium 
is to facilitate exchanges, but it can only accomplish this 
by means of the willingness of the whole community to 
exchange for it everything which they are willing to part 
with. If one individual of a community prefer one sub- 
stance, and another individual another, exchanges will be 
embarrassed by unnecessary multiplication and by the use- 
less consumption of time. And if, on the other hand, any 
substance be thus universally desired, on account of the great 
facilities which it offers, and the great saving of labor which 
it effects, it will immediately be used for this purpose. And 
it will be so used without any agency of government, and 
even although a government did not exist; just as a man 
will use any other instrument for increasing the productive- 
ness of his labor as soon as he can procure it, simply for the 
reason that it is for his advantage. 

If the exchanges of a country were wholly internal, it 
would be sufficient that such a circulating medium were 
universally acceptable in that country alone. But, inasmuch 



WHY GOLD AND SILVER ARE THE BASIS. 363 

as every nation has important and extensive exchanges with 
other nations, it is an additional advantage to have the 
same substance used as a circulating medium by all. 

Copper is only used for small values, and gold and silver 
are of universal desire because they have an intrinsic utility. 
Their brilliancy, malleability and resistance of corrosion 
make them desirable for personal ornaments, plates, and 
all manner of home decoration. While all these quaHties 
enhance their value, they are specially valuable on account 
of their permanence. It would not do to have any substance 
for the money of the country which would be liable to 
decay. Were it easily destructible, great losses would con- 
stantly occur, as the loss must fall upon the individual in 
whose hands it happened at the time to be. And, besides, 
it would be from this cause liable to so great fluctuation 
in value that it could never be used as a circulating 
medium. Were fish or wheat the circulating medium, since 
both are liable to rapid decay, a change of weather might 
frequently ruin a man. No one would exchange at such 
hazards for the circulating medium, and all exchange would 
be made in kind. Could the circulating medium always 
bear the same relative price to other commodities, it would 
probably be advantageous. But as this is impossible, it is 
manifest that that commodity which is liable to the least 
fluctuation is, by this circumstance, the best adapted to this 
purpose. 

The circulating medium of exchange should be an article 
that would represent in small bulk a large amount of value. 
This must be a value largely determined by the labor it 
represents. This is a great advantage by saving the labor of 
transportation. The commerce of the world, at its present 
state, must instantly cease if we were obliged to exchange 
gold and silver for the iron money used by direction of 
Lycurgus. Gold and silver are obtainable only by labor, 
and the amount of labor necessary to obtain them is more 
invariable than that which pertains to other substances. 
Now and then one has stumbled upon a nugget of pure gold 



364 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of great value ; but ordinarily, gold and silver are obtained 
by labor in long and patient search, in washing sands, break- 
ing rocks, reducing ores, and separating the pure metals from 
other substances. The amount produced is dependent on 
the labor employed. 

In respect to the two elements of value — desirableness, 
and cost measured by labor — gold and silver are permanent 
and uniform beyond any other products ; and these metals 
concentrate a large amount of value in a small bulk to an 
extent that the value of a load of wheat or a herd of cattle 
may be carried in a wallet. 

Another quality fitting gold and silver and copper to be 
the specie of the world is, that they are capable of minute 
division without loss. A gold eagle or a silver dollar may be 
divided into ten equal parts, and each part will have the 
value of just one tenth of the original coin. Not so with 
diamonds, which also concentrate value. A large diamond 
is worth many times its weight in small diamonds, and once 
broken into pieces, its original value can never be restored. 

The circulating medium of a country should be of such a 
nature, that it can be easily verified ; that is, it should be 
susceptible of such preparation, that every one can readily 
assure himself of its purity and weight ; that is, of its value. 
Unless this can be done, at every exchange, every one must 
examine and try every piece by itself. This would consume 
much time, would require the possession of great skill in 
every individual, and would, by its frequent repetition, soon 
wear away the substance itself. Hence it is of advantage 
that the metals used for money should be peculiar in their 
weight and color, and that their appearance should attract 
attention, so that their peculiarities may be easily learned 
and distinguished. The brilliant lustre of silver and gold, 
therefore, adds very much to their fitness for coin. Their 
weight, also, presents a ready means for the detection of 
adulteration. Platina, which is used in Russia for the 
purpose of money, has the advantage of both of them in 
weight ; but it has no lustre, and, in appearance, it very much 



NO DANGER OF OVER-PRODUCTION. 365 

resembles the baser metals. This will be an objection to its 
universal acceptableness. 

Inasmuch as gold and silver possess all the essential 
qualities which are required in a circulating medium ; and as 
the condition of man so manifestly points to the necessity of 
some such instrument, it is not remarkable that they have so 
long and so universally been adopted for this purpose. But 
it is always to be remembered, that we use them as a 
circulating medium, because we want a circulating medium, 
and because they accomplish the purpose. We do not use 
them as a circulating medium because we see a stamp upon 
them, nor because government has made them a legal tender; 
but because we know that they represent a given amount of 
value, and we therefore know that we can exchange them for 
the same amount of value whenever we please. If a bushel 
of wheat sell for a dollar, we know that it costs as much 
labor to produce a dollar at the mine and bring it to us, as to 
produce a bushel of wheat and bring it to us. Hence we 
know that, until some new and vastly more productive mines 
are discovered, this dollar cannot be produced for less labor, 
nor represent a less amount of value. And, as every body 
wants a dollar, and no one can furnish it at a less cost, we 
know that it will bring, in exchange, the same as we have 
given for it. 

As the trade and commerce of the world will likely grow 
fast enough to keep pace with the growing production of 
these metals, arising from the discovery of new mines, we 
may not expect any embarrassment of the specie basis of the 
monetary market from over-production. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

SPECIE AND THE GOVERNMENT. 

THESP2 metals are employed as the money of the world, 
not because ordained to this by authority of human 
governments, but because in the ordinance of nature they 
possess in peculiar degree those qualities so essential to 
represent precise amounts of value, and are ever exchange- 
able for the same amounts of value. In the strictest sense, 
these metals coined constitute the only real money univers- 
ally recognized. 

But there is, nevertheless, a legitimate agency of govern- 
ment with respect to money. Men use money in exchanges 
for the same reason that they use hammers in driving nails, 
because they thus save time and labor, and the work is 
thereby better done. Yet the convenience of money may be 
increased by the action of the government, in two ways. 

First, by indicating a uniform instrument of exchange; 
that is, by establishing the precious metals as a legal tender. 
Whenever any substance has been found universally adapted 
to the purposes of exchange, it is important that it should 
be used by all men, unless something to the contrary be spec- 
ified by particular contract. And to prevent disputes with- 
out end, it is desirable that something be fixed upon, of which 
the tender shall discharge forever the debtor's obligation. 
And as this would most naturally and most justly be the sub- 
stance which all men have chosen for a circulating medium, 
this is most properly chosen. Hence society or government 
has a right to establish the precious metals as a legal tender; 
that is, to enact that if a man owe another ten dollars, and 
offer him ten silver dollars, if he choose not to receive them, 
the man tendering the money is under no obligation to give 
himself any more trouble about it. The tender on his part 

866 



WHY GOVERNMENT COINS MONEY. 367 

is a full release. He is under no obligation to offer anythino- 
else ; and the other party has no right to demand anything 
else. Nor is there, in this, any oppression. If a man wish 
to be paid in something besides money, he can always specify 
it in the contract ; and thus his object can be accomplished. 
The whole effect of such a law is to prevent disputes, and to 
enact what shall be full and valid release from obligation, 
when nothing specific has been agreed upon. 

And such a law need not interfere with special contracts 
for the exchange of particular objects. A second, and the 
.most important, action of the government in money is that 
of coining. 

The coinage of a country is a common interest, an impor- 
tant and delicate trust, and can nowhere be as safely lodged 
as in its government ; and even here it has been an often 
abused prerogative. The adulteration of coin has seemed 
so simple a method of raising money that few governments 
have uniformily resisted the temptation. Yet no tax rests 
so long, so heavily, and with such broad disaster on all pro- 
ductive interests as this. To embarrass the movements of 
exchange is to impair confidence and limit the motives to 
production. A metallic currency once vitiated becomes an 
intolerable burden, and in its reformation compels an entire 
resumption of the original load of debt for a time so unsuc- 
cessfully shifted to the currency. The inevitable career of 
all such measures is from reduction to reduction, till the 
worthless medium, utterly failing to perform its functions, 
is wiped away in a new coinage. 

But while the government is the true representative of all 
common interests, and by general admission the proper 
agent in establishing and sustaining a currency, it is not 
desirable that this should be done wholly at the public 
expense. If coin is given in equal weight at the pubhc 
mints for bullion, the expense of coinage and of the delay 
involved both fall on the public. There is in that case no 
greater value attached to coined than to uncoined metal; 
and hence, in the arts, the one is as quickly melted down as 



368 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the other. Nor in foreign trade has bullion any advantage 
above coin. That the expenses, therefore, of coinage may 
not be unnecessarily increased by a waste of coin, it is desir- 
able that a certain charge or seigniorage should be made at 
the mint, slightly raising the price of coin. Such a charge 
should be slight, otherwise it will keep bullion from the 
mints and make the replenishing of the currency more 
difficult. 

The history of the coinage of money by the United 
States government is one of great interest. The Mint was 
established by act of congress on April 2, 1792. Branch 
mints were estabhshed in 1873 in California, Nevada and 
Colorado. The building for the first mint was erected in 
Philadelphia, The first director was David Rittenhouse, 
LL.D., who was appointed by Washington April 14, 1792, 

The first money coined by the authority of the United 
States were copper cents made in 1793. In the following 
year silver dollars were made. Gold eagles were made in 
1795, The first copper used by the mint was imported 
from England. 

The site of the present building of the mint is on Chest- 
nut street, below Broad, and has been occupied since 1833. 
The structure is marble, and of the Grecian style of archi- 
tecture. It was made fire-proof in 1854. 

In the weighing-room of this building all the metal used 
by the mint is received and weighed. Deposits of plate, 
jewelry, or native gold, of less than one hundred dollars 
value, will not be received. It is estimated that about six 
hundred millions of dollars' worth of gold has been received 
and weighed in this room. Of this sum probably nine tenths 
has been received since the first discovery of gold in Cali- 
fornia, in 1848. Previous to that time the gold came from 
different places, but principally from Virginia, North Caro- 
lina and Georgia. Considerable quantities of a very fine 
quality have come from Nova Scotia during the past four or 
five years. Most of the gold which reaches the mint at the 



THE LARGEST NUGGET OF GOLD. 369 

present time comes from Montana territory. Nearly all west 
of that goes to the branch mint at San Francisco. 

Before the discovery of the immense veins of silver which 
exist in the territories of the United States, the silver used 
by the mint came principally from Mexico and South 
America. The precious metals are now found in most of 
the territories through which the Rocky and other mount- 
ains pass. 

The copper used by the mint comes principally from the 
mines of Lake Superior. The finest is found in Minnesota. 
The nickel is principally from Lancaster county, Pennsyl- 
vania, but it is also found in other sections of the country. 

The largest weight used in the mint is five hundred 
ounces, while the smallest is the thirteen-hundredth part 
of a grain, and can scarcely be seen with the naked eye. 
This scale is so delicate that if the arms be accurately 
balanced with a piece of white paper on one side, the mere 
weight of a single word written on the paper will weigh it 
down. There are twelve vaults in the mint, made of solid 
masonry lined with iron, and most of them with very 
complicated locks. 

The purest gold in this country has been found in the 
state of Georgia. The largest nugget of gold ever brought 
to the mint came from California in 1852, and was worth 
nearly six thousand dollars in gold. Attempts have been 
made to deposit spurious or manufactured nuggets at the 
mint, but no matter how nicely the fraud has been concealed 
it has always been detected. 

After the metal is weighed carefully in the deposit room, 
in the presence of the depositor and oflficers of the mint, it 
is locked up in iron boxes and conveyed to the melting 
room, where the boxes are unlocked by two men, each pro- 
vided with a key. There are four furnaces in this room, and 
the first process of melting which the gold or silver goes 
through after falling into the hands of the mint, takes place 
here. The metal, after being properly mixed with borax, or 
other fluxing material, is placed in pots and melted. It is 
24 



370 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

then poured into iron moulds, and when cool is again carried 
to the deposit room and reweighed, after which a small 
piece, weighing about three pennyweights, is cut off from 
each deposited lot by the assayer. From this small piece 
the fineness of the whole lot (perhaps ten thousand dollars' 
worth) is ascertained, its value calculated, and the depositor 
paid. The gold in its rough state is then ready to be trans- 
ferred to the melter and refiner to be refined and rendered 
fit for coinage. 

In the process of assaying gold the small piece cut off by 
the assayer is placed in a black lead pot and covered with 
borax to assist the fluxing and to prevent the oxidation of 
the alloy. It is thus melted down and stirred, by which a 
complete mixture is effected, so that an assay piece may be 
taken from any part of the bar after it is cast. The piece 
taken for this purpose is rolled out for the convenience of 
cutting. It is then taken to an assay balance (sensible to 
the ten-thousandth of a half gramme or less), and from it is 
weighed a half gramme, which is the normal assay weight 
for gold, being about seven and seven tenths grains troy. 
This weight is stamped one thousand ; and all the lesser 
weights (afterward brought into requisition) are decimal 
divisions of this weight, down to one ten-thousandth part. 

The assay of silver is similar in process to that of gold, 
except that charcoal is used instead of borax, in order to 
prevent oxidation and to allow of dipping out. The gold 
and silver used in the assaying process are returned to the 
depositor. 

In the separating room the gold and silver used by the 
mint in the manufacture of coin and fine bars are separated 
from each other, or whatever other metals may be mixed 
with them, and purified. It goes to this room after having 
been once melted and assayed. In separating and purifying 
gold, it is always necessary to add to it a certain quantity of 
pure silver. The whole is then immersed in nitric acid, 
which dissolves the silver into a liquid which looks like 
pure water. The acid does not dissolve the gold, but leaves 



THE PROCESS OF COINAGE. 371 

it pure. The silver solution is then drawn off, leaving the 
gold at the bottom of the tub. It is then gathered up into 
pans and washed. 

The silver in the condition in which it is received from 
the hands of the depositor, and generally filled with numer- 
ous impurities, is melted and then granulated, after which 
the whole mass is dissolved with nitric acid. The acid dis- 
solves the base metal as well as the silver. The liquid metal 
is then run into tubs prepared for it, and precipitated or 
rendered into a partially hard state, by being mixed with 
common salt water. After being precipitated it is called 
chloride. By putting spelter or zinc on the precipitated 
chloride, it becomes metallic silver, and only needs washing 
and melting to make the purest virgin metal. The base 
metals remain in a liquid state, and being of Httle value 
are generally thrown away. 

After the refining process has been completed, the gold 
or silver is conveyed to the drying cellar, where it is put 
under a pressure of some eighty tons, and all the water 
pressed out. It is then dried with heat, and conveyed in 
large cakes to the melting room. 

Here it is properly mixed, heated, and then poured into 
an iron mould. When cool it is knocked out of the mould, 
and although it is rich-looking, it is without that brilliant 
lustre which we see in new coin. The piece taken from the 
mould is now called an ingot. It is about twelve inches long, 
and is wedge-shaped at one end. This end is made wedge- 
shaped to facilitate its passage through the rollers. A gold 
ingot is worth about twelve hundred dollars in gold. A silver 
ingot is worth about sixty dollars in silver, A noticeable 
feature of the melting room is the false floor. It is of iron, and 
is laid in small sections. It acts as a continual scraper, and 
prevents any of the small particles of precious metals from 
sticking to the shoes of those who pass through the rooms. 
The sweepings of these rooms have sometimes proved to be 
worth fifty thousand dollars in one year. 

The melting of copper is similar to that of gold and silver. 



372 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Up to the year 1857, the base coin of the United States was 
exclusively copper. In this year the coinage of what was 
called the nickel cents was commenced. These pieces, 
although called nickel, were composed of one-eighth nickel; 
the balance was copper. Since the first coinage of nickel 
money, the pieces have changed two or three times, both in 
design and mixture. The present coinage of base coins is 
as follows: 

NICKEL. 

Weight. 

Three cent 32 grains 180 pieces to the pound. 

Five cent 77 16-100 or about 74 pieces to the pound. 



Weight. 

One cent 48 grains 120 pieces to the pound. 

Two cent 96 grains 60 pieces to the pound. 

The composition of the five and three cent pieces is one 
fourth nickel ; the balance copper. The bronze pieces are a 
mixture of copper, zinc and tin, about equal parts of each of 
the two last ; the former contributing about ninety-five per 
cent. 

After passing through the melting room, the metals (gold, 
silver and copper) are passed through rollers until they 
assume the shape of long thin strips of the requisite thick- 
ness for the sort of coin required. These strips pass through 
the cutting presses, and are cut into pieces of the desired 
denomination. These pieces are conveyed to the adjoining 
room w^here they are inspected, and weighed on very fine 
scales. There is a certain deviation in the weight of all coins 
allowed by law. If a piece is found too light, it is thrown 
aside and melted over again ; if too heavy, but very near the 
weight, it is taken in hand, and a small particle filed off the 
edges ; if too heavy to admit of filing, it is thrown aside with 
the light ones and melted again into ingots. If a piece is 
found to be of the proper weight, it is then ready for the 
cleaning room. 



THE COUNTING BOARDS. 



373 



After these pieces are cleaned with heat, acid and water, 
they are ready for the coining. The pieces are first weighed, 
then they pass through a machine which turns up the edge, 
before they are ready for the coining presses. There are ten 
of these presses, each one capable of making from seventy 
to one hundred and twenty coins per minute. They are 
seldom run at a greater speed than eighty per minute. If 
each press in the room was run at its greatest capacity, and 
engaged in making double eagles (twenty dollars), in the 
short space of one minute we should have the astonishing 
sum of thirty-four thousand dollars manufactured. Only the 
largest presses are used in making coins of large denomina- 
tion. The small presses are used for base coins and the 
smaller denominations of silver pieces. The amount of 
pressure necessary to making a perfect coin is from twenty 
to eighty tons. The larger the piece the more pressure is 
required. These machines are attended by ladies, and do 
their work in the most perfect manner. The deviation of a 
hair's breadth would spoil the coin. 

The impressions on both sides of the coin are made with 
one motion of the press. A steel die, whereon the characters 
to be placed on the coin have been engraved or dug out, is 
fastened by means of screws on to what is called a " stake," 
and placed below or on the bed of the press. It is set about 
the thickness of the coin below the surface, and is surrounded 
by a " collar." It makes no material difference whether the 
obverse or reverse of the coin is below, although the latter 
is generally placed there. On a portion of the machine 
made to receive it, working directly over the lower die, the 
obverse die is fixed, and on this portion the pressure is 
regulated. 

The counting boards are used for counting the small 
silver and base coins into packages varying in value from five 
to fifty dollars. By this process twenty-five dollars in five 
cent pieces can be counted in less than a minute. After 
being put in packages the entire process of coining is 
completed. 



374 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

No eagles were coined from 1805 to 1837 inclusive; no 
half eagles in 18 16 or 18 17; no quarter eagles before 1796, 
nor in 1800 or 1801, nor from 1809 to 1820, or in 1822, 1823, 
1828 or 184 1 ; no dollars from 1806 to 1838 except one thou- 
sand in 1836; no half dollars from 1797 to 1800, nor in 181 5; 
no quarters before 1796, none from 1798 to 1803, none from 
1808 to 1 8 14, and none in 18 17, 1824, 1826, 1829 and 1830; 
no dimes before 1796, none in 1799, 1806, 1808, 18 12, 181 3, 
18 1 5 to 1 8 19, none in 1824, 1828 and 1830; no half dimes in 
1798, 1799, 1804, 1806 to 1828; no cents in 18 15; a few- 
specimens in 1823 ; no half cents in 1798, 1801, 18 12 to 1824, 
1827 to 1830, 1834, 1836 and 1840. A few half cents were 
struck every year from 1840 to 1857. First three dollar 
pieces in 1854, 

The coinage of the silver dollar of four hundred and 
twelve and one half grains, the five and three cent silver 
pieces and bronze two cent piece was discontinued under the 
coinage act of 1873, which went into effect on the first of 
April of that year. 

Pure silver is worth one dollar and tjiirty cents an ounce, 
troy. Pure gold is worth twenty dollars and sixty-seven 
cents an ounce, or a fraction over fifteen times as much as 
silver. The pure gold is always a bright straw color; the 
different grades of color seen in jewelry, etc., are caused by 
different alloyage. 

Half cents have not been coined since 1857. All of the 
base coins for the country are coined in this institution. It 
is capable of making enough coin to supply the wants of all 
the nations of the world. 

The coinage of the mint up to June 30, 1877, amounted 
to one billion one hundred and thirty-two million two hun- 
dred and twenty-six thousand three hundred and ninety 
dollars and ninety-five cents. This includes gold, silver, 
nickel and copper. 

Coin is procured from the mint in the following manner: 
Any responsible person can make a deposit of gold or silver 
at the mint, providing it be of one hundred dollars in value. 



.:.:^...M 



WHAT BECOMES OF OLD COIN. 375 

On depositing the bullion, the depositor is furnished with a 
receipt for the gross weight of his deposit. After the fine- 
ness of the bullion has been ascertained by assaying, the 
calculations are made, and the depositor is paid the full 
value, deducting a small charge only for the work. If the 
deposit be gold, it is paid in gold ; if silver, it is paid in 
silver. The mint does not exchange money, and recognizes 
no depositor but the person who presents the bullion. In 
all cases the depositor is expected to state what state or 
country the bullion is from. 

Inasmuch as money is liable to continual wear from 
friction, and as it is thus steadily though slowly diminished 
in value, it at last becomes so much worn as to be unfit 
for circulation ; because its impression is effaced, and also 
because it contains much less than the standard quantity of 
metal. When it becomes thus unfit for circulation, on whom 
is the loss to fall, on the last holder, or on the whole com- 
munity? Doubtless, on the latter. The last holder has 
derived no more benefit from it than any one of the thou- 
sand holders, each one of whom has contributed by using it 
to depreciate its value, and there is no reason why he, in 
preference to any other, should bear the whole loss. In 
other words, worn-out coin should always be received at the 
mint at par, and exchanged for new. This remark, however, 
should apply only to worn-out coin, and not to coin which 
has been fraudulently diminished in value. Pierced or 
clipped coin should not be exchanged. Our government 
provides that gold coins of the United States may be 
received at the treasury at their denominational value, pro- 
vided that, after a circulation of twenty years, they are not 
reduced in weight more than one half of one per centum. 

The government has also authority to control the circula- 
tion within its own territory of foreign coins. Otherwise, 
worn and depreciated coin of other countries may come in 
and drive out its own superior money. Thus some years 
ago our government ordered that worn Spanish and Mexican 
silver coins should be received only at a discount of twenty 



37^ THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

per cent on their face value, though they were really depre- 
ciated only ten per cent. This made the old coins worth 
more as bullion than as coin, and they were collected and 
melted. 

The lack of uniformity in the monetary systems of 
different countries involves troublesome fractional operations 
in reducing the coinage of one country to that of another. 
It is, therefore, very desirable that the attempts to secure a 
system of correlated international coinage for the civilized 
nations of the world should succeed. A slight change in the 
systems of the leading commercial nations will secure 
uniformity. If with this change a uniform system of weights 
and measures could also be adopted, the exchanges of the 
world would be greatly facilitated. 

The principal question now in debate among governments 
and statesmen is whether gold, or silver, or both shall be 
made legal tender. Countries using both these metals as 
legal money are said to have a double standard. The single 
silver standard prevails in Australia, India, China, and other 
parts of Asia. The gold standard is used in England, 
Germany, the Scandinavian kingdoms and Portugal. The 
double standard of gold and silver, prevails in France, Bel- 
gium, Italy and Switzerland. It is also in use in the United 
States, in Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Mexico, Japan 
and Russia. 

In 1873, the United States demonetized silver, taking 
away from silver coins their legal tender quality. It was not 
long before the agitation began for its remonetization, and 
after a long and heated controversy in Congress, and by the 
press of the country, silver was again made legal tender, and 
its extensive coinage was provided for by law. Since this 
remonetization the opinion has been growing stronger in this 
country, that the double standard is founded in reason, and 
ought to prevail throughout the world. 

England established the gold standard in 18 16, and has 
adhered to it steadily since. The United States had the 
double standard till 1873, and reestablished it in 1878. 



MONEY VALUATIONS. 



377 



France, and the other nations of the so-called Latin union, 
hold to the double standard ; and the general aspect of the 
field seems to indicate a growing tendency in favor of the 
double standard among all the first-class commercial powers, 
England possibly excepted. 

When two kinds of money of different valuations are 
thrown into the trade of a country together, it is a law, as 
fixed as the law of gravitation, that the cheaper money, of 
inferior value, will drive out the dearer money, whose value 
is greater. If the government comes in often to adjust the 
relations of the two metals, this interference disturbs the 
operations of trade. This difficulty would be relieved in 
measure, if all commercial nations were to adopt the double 
standard ; but even then some international congress would 
need from time to time to define the relative value of the 
two metals. 

No government has any right to raise the denomination 
of any coin ; this would be a fraud on the money markets of 
the world, and a deception on the poorer class of persons in 
the country, as well as a cheat on all concerned. Yet in 
ancient and modern times nations have, when driven to the 
verge of bankruptcy, resorted to this juggling trick. The 
Romans, at the end of the First Punic war, reduced the as, 
the coin or denomination by which they computed the value 
of all their other coins, from containing twelve ounces of 
copper to contain only two ounces ; that is, they raised two 
ounces of copper to a denomination which had always before 
expressed the value of twelve ounces. The republic was in 
this manner enabled to pay the great debts which it had 
contracted with the sixth part of what it really owed. The 
law which enacted it was, like all other laws relating to the 
coin, introduced and carried through the assembly of the 
people by a tribune, and was probably a very popular law. 
In Rome, as in all the other ancient republics, the poor peo- 
ple were constantly in debt to the rich and the great, who, 
in order to secure their votes at the annual elections, used 
to lend them money at exorbitant interest, which, being 



iiH^i:' 



378 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

never paid, soon accumulated into a sum too great either for 
the debtor to pay or for anybody else to pay for him. The 
debtor, for fear of a very severe execution, was obliged, with- 
out any further gratuity, to vote for the candidate whom the 
creditor recommended. In spite of all the laws against 
bribery and corruption, the bounty of the candidates, 
together with the occasional distribution of corn, which was 
ordered by the senate, were the principal funds from which, 
during the latter times of the Roman republic, the poorer 
citizens derived their subsistence. 

To deliver themselves from this subjection to their credi- 
tors, the poorer citizens were continually calling out either 
for an entire abolition of debts, or for what they called new 
tables; that is, for a law which should entitle them to a 
complete acquittance, upon paying only a certain proportion 
of their accumulated debts. The law which reduced the 
coin of all denominations to a sixth part of its former value, 
as it enabled them to pay their debts with a sixth part of 
what they really owed, was equivalent to the most advanta- 
geous new tables. In order to satisfy the people, the rich 
and the great were, upon several different occasions, obliged 
to consent to laws both for abolishing debts and for intro- 
ducing new tables ; and they probably were induced to con- 
sent to this law partly for the same reason, and partly that, 
by liberating the public revenue, they might restore vigor to 
that government of which they themselves had the principal 
direction. An operation of this kind would at once reduce 
a debt of a hundred and twenty-eight millions to a little 
over twenty-one millions. In the course of the Second Punic 
war the as was still further reduced, first, from two ounces 
of copper to one ounce, and afterward from one ounce to 
half an ounce ; that is, to the twenty-fourth part of its origi- 
nal value. By combining the three Roman operations into 
one, a debt of a hundred and twenty-eight millions of our 
present money might in this manner be reduced all at once 
to a debt of five millions. Even the enormous debt of 
Great Britain might in this manner soon be paid. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CREDIT AN INSTRUMENT OF EXCHANGE. 

CREDIT plays an important part in the exchange of the 
world. A very small part of trade is carried on by the 
actual transfer of money. Credit is, in a large part of 
exchange, the substitute for money. Its use can hardly be 
estimated. Credit is trust in the promise to pay. 

The advantages which belong to credit are open to all, 
while its disadvantages are concealed from many. Credit 
does not create, it only transfers, capital. That which was 
previously in one man's hands is by credit transferred in its 
occupation, its use, to another. There may be a great gain 
to the interests of production in this transfer. The owner 
may be either unable or indisposed to employ his capital ; 
the borrower may have both the industry and skill requisite 
for its profitable use, and thus by the act of credit new 
returns be realized by both, and the general resources of 
production augmented. 

Though credit is never anything more than a transfer of 
capital from hand to hand, it is generally and naturally a 
transfer to hands more competent to employ the capital 
efficiently in production. If there were no such thing as 
credit, many persons who possess more or less of capital, but 
who from their occupations, or for want of the necessary 
skill and knowledge, cannot personally superintend its 
employment, would derive no benefit from it ; their funds 
would either lie idle, or would be, perhaps, wasted and 
annihilated in unskillful attempts to make them yield a 
profit. All this capital is now lent at interest and made 
available for production. Capital thus circumstanced forms 
a large portion of the productive resources of any commer- 
cial country, and is naturally attracted to those producers 

379 



380 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

or traders who, being in the greatest business, have the 
means of employing it to most advantage ; beeause such are 
both the most desirous to obtain it and able to give the 
best security. Although, therefore, the productive funds of 
the country are not increased by credit, they are called into 
a more complete state of productive activity. As the confi- 
dence on which credit is grounded extends itself, means are 
developed by which even the smallest portions of capital — 
the sums which each person keeps by him to meet contin- 
gencies — are made available for productive uses. The 
principal instruments for this purpose are banks of deposit. 
Where these do not exist, a prudent person must keep a 
sufficient sum unemployed in his own possession to meet 
every demand which he has even a slight reason for think- 
ing himself liable to. When the practice, however, has 
grown up of keeping this reserve not in his own custody 
but with a banker, many small sums previously lying idle 
become aggregated in the banker's hands; and the banker, 
being taught by experience what proportion of the amount 
is likely to be wanted in a given time, and knowing that if 
one depositor happens to require more than the average 
another will require less, is able to lend the remainder — that 
is, the far greater part — to producers and dealers, thereby 
adding the amount, not indeed to the capital in existence, 
but to that in employment, and making a corresponding 
addition to the aggregate production of the community. 

The gains of credit do not belong to it in all forms. The 
credit which the industrious merchant and artisan extend to 
the consumer is not usually attended with these results. By 
such credits, those engaged in production are deprived of 
the immediate, the complete, command of their resources, 
and this often in favor of those who are relatively unproduc- 
tive consumers. In this kind of credit neither party gains 
to the full that which is lost by the extended time of pay- 
ment. The merchant, by the smaller but more rapid and 
safe profits of a cash system, is able to realize more than by 
the dilatory method of book account. The customer, in the 



DIFFERENT FORMS OF CREDIT. 38 1 

additional profits which he finally pays the merchant in the 
arrangement of his account, should remember that there is 
included not only interest for the average time during which 
the use of capital has been lost, but also a percentage repre- 
senting the bad debts which are the necessary accompani- 
ments of such a business. Only he who exacts prompt 
payment, and is very vigilant for himself, can afford to sell 
cheap. Credit, then, between the producer and customer is 
as liable to be attended with loss as with gain. 

The first of the leading forms of credit is that of book 
accounts. In a book account there is but a single credit or 
series of credits, single transactions, and no power to make 
them the bases of others. The effect of this kind of credit 
must depend on the particular case in which it exists, and 
on how far it becomes the general method of business. 

When credit takes the form of a book account, the depos- 
itor gives his banker credit for money put into his hands to 
be paid on his order, and accepts a certificate of deposit, or 
an entry on his bank book, as the promise, the voucher, for 
the transaction. The orders by which the deposits are 
drawn out are called checks. These may float about .with a 
limited circulation, as tokens of credit at home. Or, on a 
wider range, taking the form of bills of exchange, the credit 
thus originated may reach around the globe, doing good 
service in the exchanges of individuals and of nations. Bills 
•of exchange were first introduced to save the expense and 
risk of transporting the precious metals from place to place. 

Bills of exchange having been found convenient as means 
of paying debts at distant places without the expense of 
transporting the precious metals, their use was afterward 
greatly extended from another motive. It is usual in every 
trade to give a certain length of credit for goods bought: 
three months, six months, a year, even two years, according 
to the convenience or custom of the particular trade. A 
dealer who has sold goods, for which he is to be paid in six 
months, but who desires to receive payment sooner, draws a 
bill on his debtor payable in six months, and gets the bill 



382 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

discounted by a banker or other money-lender; that is, trans- 
fers the bill to him, receiving the amount, minus interest for 
the time it has still to run. It has become one of the chief 
functions of bills of exchange to sefve as a means by which 
a debt due from one person can thus be made available for 
obtaining credit from another. 

Another form of credit, equally extensive in its applica- 
tion with the bill of exchange, is the promissory note. A 
bill drawn upon any one and accepted by him, and a note of 
hand by him, promising to pay the same sum, are, as far as 
he is concerned, exactly equivalent, except that the former 
commonly bears interest and the latter generally does not ; 
and that the former is commonly payable only after a certain 
lapse of time, and the latter payable at sight. But it is 
chiefly in the latter form that it has become, in commercial 
countries, an express occupation to issue such substitutes for 
money. Dealers in money desire, like other dealers, to 
stretch their operations beyond what can be carried on by 
their own means : they wish to lend, not their capital merely, 
but their credit, and not only such portion of their credit as 
consists of funds actually deposited with them, but their 
power of obtaining credit from the public generally, so far as 
they think they can safely employ it. This is done in a 
very convenient manner by lending their own promissory 
notes payable to bearer on demand : the borrower being 
willing to accept these as so much money, because the credit 
of the lender makes other people willingly receive them on 
the same footing, in purchases or other payments. These 
notes, therefore, perform all the functions of currency, and 
render an equivalent amount of money which was previously 
in circulation, unnecessary. As, however, being payable on 
demand, they may be at any time returned on the issuer, 
and money demanded for them, he must, on pain of bank- 
ruptcy, keep by him as much money as will enable him to 
meet any claims of that sort which can be expected to occur 
within the time necessary for providing himself with more; 
and prudence also requires that he should not attempt to 



STOCKS AND BONDS. 383 

issue notes beyond the amount which experience shows can 
remain in circulation without being presented for payment. 

The convenience of this mode of coining credit, having 
once been discovered, governments have availed themselves 
of the same expedient, and have issued their own promissory 
notes in payment of their expenses ; a resource the more 
useful, because it is the only mode in which they are able to 
borrow money without paying interest, their promises to pay 
on demand being in the estimation of the holders, equivalent 
to money in hand. 

A bank bill is a promissory note payable on demand. 
Such a note may be the unlimited instrument of purchase. 

Another form of credit is that of stocks. In this form a 
number of persons wishing to combine their capital for man- 
ufacturing, banking, building a railway, or whatever, form a 
stock company. Each gives credit to the company for the 
capital he puts in, and accepts a certificate of stock as the 
promise, or voucher. These certificates aire transferable; 
and credit in this form becomes an article of merchandise 
with a current price, more or less variable, from causes 
natural or artificial. 

Bonds are a form of credit. These are issued by corpora- 
tions, cities, states and nations, and are evidences of debt. 
Whoever holds these gives credit to the body corporate or 
politic, whose promise is embodied in the bond. These, 
like stocks, are made articles of merchandise, and are sought 
by many for the investment of money. They are also often 
made the sport of wild and reckless speculation, and so 
credit furnishes instruments for stock-gamblers to play with. 

These forms of credit exist, and will exist more or less 
extensively in every commercial nation ; and it is only 
where they have become so far systematized as to be an 
habitual method of payment, as to underlie a large share of 
the business of the country, that their effects are manifestly 
injurious. 

Credit has a purchasing power equal to cash, and the sum 
of each man's purchasing power is equal to his cash and his 



384 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

credit. If he is confined, or nearly confined, to the former, 
his ability by actual purchase to enhance the demand will 
be greatly restricted ; if he can employ to its utmost ten- 
sion the last, his purchasing power and his ability to affect 
the market will be proportionately augmented. It does not 
indeed follow that because a man has credit he will use it, 
or, if he uses, will use it to its full extent ; but a system of 
credit entering as a stated element into the methods of busi- 
ness, shows not only the existence, but a very large use of 
the purchasing power of credit, and hence a proportionate 
intensity of demand acting on price. 

A serious abuse of credit is that it is apt to be too freely 
used. When there is a general impression that the price of 
some commodity is likely to rise, there is a general disposi- 
tion for men dealing in that commodity to increase their 
stock to the extent of both their capital and credit. When 
the prices cease to rise, the holders are anxious to sell. Then 
the price begins to decline ; the holders rush into the market 
to avoid a still greater loss, and few being willing to buy in 
a falling market the price falls much more suddenly than it 
rose. Those who have bought at a higher price than rea- 
sonable calculation justified, and who have been overtaken 
by the revulsion before they had realized, are losers in pro- 
portion to the greatness of the fall, and to the quantity of 
the commodity which they hold, or have bound themselves 
to pay for. 

If there were no such thing as credit, this could hardly 
happen with respect to commodities generally. If all pur- 
chases were made with ready money, the payment of 
increased prices for some articles would draw an unusual 
proportion of the money of the community into the markets 
for those articles, and must therefore draw it away from 
some other class of commodities, and thus lower their prices. 
The vacuum might, it is true, be partly filled up by increased 
rapidity of circulation ; and in this manner the money of the 
community is virtually increased in a time of speculative 
activity, because people keep little of it by them, but hasten 



CAUSE OF A COMMERCIAL CRISIS. 385 

to lay it out in some tempting adventure as soon as possible 
after they receive it.. This resource, however, is Hmited; 
on the whole, people cannot, while the quantity of money 
remains the same, lay out much more of it in some things 
without laying out less in others. But what they cannot do 
by ready money, they can do by an extension of credit. 
When people go into the market and purchase with money 
which they hope to receive hereafter, they are drawing upon 
an unlimited, not a limited, fund. Speculation, thus sup- 
ported, may be going on in any number of commodities, 
without disturbing the regular course of business in others. 
It might even be going on in all commodities at one. We 
could imagine that in an epidemic fit of the passion of 
gambling, all dealers, instead of giving only their accustomed 
orders to the manufacturers or growers of their commodity, 
commenced buying up all of it which they could procure, as 
far as their capital and credit would go. All prices would 
rise enormously, even if there were no increase of money, 
and no paper credit, but a mere extension of purchases on 
book credits. After a time those who had bought would 
wish to sell, and prices would collapse. 

This is the ideal extreme case of what is called a commer- 
cial crisis. There is said to be a commercial crisis, when a great 
number of merchants and traders at once, either have, or appre- 
hend that they shall have, a difficulty in meeting their engage- 
ments. The most usual cause of this general embarrassment, 
is the recoil of prices after they have been raised by a spirit 
of speculation intense in degree and extending to many 
commodities. Some accident which excites expectations of 
rising prices, such as the opening of a new foreign market, 
or simultaneous indications of a short supply of several 
great articles of commerce, sets speculation at work in 
several leading departments at once. The prices rise and 
the holders realize or appear to have the power of realizing 
great gains. In certain states of the public mind, such 
examples of rapid increase of fortune call forth numerous 
imitators, and speculation not only goes much beyond what 
25 



386 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

is justified by the original grounds for expecting rise of price, 
but extends itself to articles in which there never was any 
such ground : these, however, rise like the rest as soon as 
speculation sets in. At periods of this kind, a great exten- 
sion of credit takes place. Not only do all whom the con- 
tagion reaches employ their credit much more freely than 
usual ; but they really have more credit, because they seem 
to be making unusual gains. But when the reaction comes 
there is sure to be a crisis. 

Chief among the evil effects of prices made high by credit^ 
is that upon currency. These prices induce a large importa- 
tion, leaving a balance to be met by the abduction of specie. 
Nor does this tendency have any definite limits. Credit, 
elastic and ductile, enters in to take the place of the coin 
withdrawn and prices remaining the same, still further pay- 
ments are made necessary. By this means the currency 
becomes more and more embarrassed. 

These prices also discourage home industry. All things 
purchased at home are for the manufacturer high ; his goods, 
therefore, must bear a correspondingly high price. But 
goods from abroad can still be exchanged on the old terms 
for gold and silver; and hence, in the home market he is 
readily undersold. Neither in the foreign market can he 
make sales for cash to the same advantage as formerly, since 
at home gold is a depreciated commodity. In the home 
market he is readily undersold and forced into the foreign 
market. But even here, if thrown into competition with the 
same goods brought by a foreign vessel, he may, in a traffic 
for the precious metals, be undersold and can only protect 
himself by a repurchase of goods for the home market. 

The effect which the credit system has on the commercial 
integrity of men — the basis of all permanent success — 
should be observed. Nothing can be easier than fraud 
under such a system. The young man, with no reputation 
for skill or honesty, and but little property, makes a large 
purchase on six months' credit and removes the goods to a 
distant place; he may there effect rapid sales at reduced 



THE AMERICAN CREDIT SYSTEM. 387 

prices, pocket the avails and decamp. Or with more honesty 
and less thrift, he in turn may give credit, and making but 
few profitable sales, find the goods scattered and himself 
unable to meet his obligations. In such a system the reward 
of property, skill and integrity are greatly reduced. No man 
finds it necessary to bring these to the loan market. Money 
and goods are ready on hard conditions indeed ; but he with 
the same spirit, can still further raise the prices and pass on 
the burdened product. Is it strange that a reckless, specu- 
lating spirit should be the first-born of such a system ; that 
patient, plodding industry should be regarded as a poor, 
stupid substitute for enterprise and a general crash as a joke 
on a large scale? Men who work with that which is not 
their own have not the same motives to caution ; the losses 
are not theirs ; and they come out of a business, totally 
wrecked, with nearly all with which they entered it. They 
had but little business character to lose, and where bank- 
ruptcies are frequent they have proportionately less power 
to affect reputation. The results of indolence and heedless- 
ness are not, under such a system, suffered to follow men. 
An easy law of bankruptcy is its necessary and natural 
supplement. 

That these are forces which readily manifest themselves 
in this revolution between the poles of extended credit and 
bankruptcy, there can be no doubt ; but it is equally certain 
that these forces are largely under control, and that their 
movement may be greatly modified or entirely suspended. 
No crisis can exist without extended credit, since a crisis is 
no other than a general pressure for payment. Unsafe credit 
is the common quality, the provoking cause, of all crises. 
Anything which reduces credit, destroys its systematic 
application, and makes it firm, though not able to impart a 
uniform prosperity, will largely remove these destructive 
scourges of the commercial world. 

Whatever are the dangers and evils of our American credit 
system, yet it is one of the most commendable features of 
our national life, when not abused. It brings money into 



388 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the form of capital, and makes it available for the increase of 
wealth. Widows, minors, aged persons, professional men, 
otherwise occupied, and unfamiliar with manufactures and 
trade, are often the owners of property from which they need 
an income ; but they cannot, by their own labor, make it 
productive. By means of credit this wealth is made produc- 
tive capital for the benefit of all parties. Credit also gathers 
up the small savings of many, and puts them into union with 
labor for profitable use. 

Credit enables industrial talent to be used, which other- 
wise would lie dormant. By means of it many a poor man, 
of strength and skill, obtains the needed capital, by which 
alone his powers can be employed and developed. A large 
portion of the most successful business men in our country 
have begun with only their own faculties and energies, and a 
character to command confidence, and bring them capital on 
credit. 

In the light of these two of its functions, credit is indis- 
pensable, both to the full drawing out of the capital of a 
country, and to the full development of its industrial talent. 
Thus it touches both the springs of productive industry: 
capital and labor. 

Credit, to a limited extent, may be safely put into the 
form of currency or paper money. It is a rule of sound 
economy, to use the cheapest tools which will serve the 
desired purpose. If promissory notes of banks, to an amount 
equal to double the specie they hold, will effect exchanges 
well and safely, the real value of half the gold and silver, 
fixed in money, may be devoted to other purposes. 

So far the instrument of exchange is cheapened, to 
advantage. This use of credit, however, runs close upon the 
line of danger, and needs careful restrictions. 

For all these functions of credit a basis of sound money is 
indispensable. Nothing but real money, made of gold and 
silver, can furnish the universal standard of value required. 
This is the ballast of the ship of trade. Credit furnishes the 
sails. Any ballast that easily shifts in a storm brings danger 



TRUE BASIS OF CREDIT. 389 

to the ship. The credit which circles the world, and binds 
all civilized nations together by the common interests and 
mutual service of universal commerce, must be sustained by 
the all-pervading presence of money, whose value is uniform 
and stable. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

BANKS AND BANKING. 

THE word bank is of Italian origin. In the beginning 
of European commerce, the Jews in Italy were in 
the habit of assembling themselves in the market-places of 
the principal towns, and, seated on benches, loaned and 
exchanged money. From this we have the term bank, from 
banco, a bench. It was a custom to break the bench of any 
one of these money-lenders who failed, and from this we 
have the word bankrupt. 

The origin of modern banking may be traced to the 
money-lenders of Florence, who were in high repute as 
receivers on deposit and lenders of money, in the fourteenth 
century ; and banking was known at Florence in the thir- 
teenth, if not even in the twelfth, century. In 1345 the two 
greatest mercantile houses in Italy failed. Citizens and 
kings had deposited with, or had loaned to, these houses 
over a million florins in gold. The fall of these two leading 
commercial pillars well-nigh crushed the commerce of Flor- 
ence. The city, however, recovered from this terrible 
disaster, and the faith in banking was so far restored that 
at one time there were eighty bankers in Florence, and yet 
not one public bank. 

But the business of banking, if not the name, was known 
long before this. Banking appears to have reached a high 
state of development among the ancients. The bankers of 
Greece and Rome exercised nearly the same functions as 
those of the present day, except that they do not appear to 
have issued notes. They received money on deposit, to be 
repaid on demands made by checks or orders, or at some 
stipulated period, sometimes paying interest for it, and 
sometimes not. Their profits arose from their lending the 

390 



THE BANK OF VENICE. 39 1 

balance at their disposal at higher rates of interest than they 
allowed the depositors. They were extensively employed in 
valuing and exchanging foreign moneys for the cities of 
Athens, Corinth and Rome, and in negotiating bills of 
exchange. In general, they were highly esteemed, and 
great confidence was placed in their integrity. The rate 
of interest charged by the bankers was sometimes very 
high, but that was not a consequence, as has been alleged, 
of their rapacity, but of the defective state of the law, which, 
as it gave every facility to debtors disposed to evade pay- 
ment of their debts, obliged the bankers to guarantee 
themselves by charging a proportionally high rate of interest. 
Banking again reappeared in Italy upon the revival of 
civilization. The Bank of Venice is reputed the first in 
date in the history of modern Europe, but it did not 
become a bank, as we understand the term, till long after 
its foundation. 

Historians inform us that the republic being hard pressed 
for money, was obliged, on three different occasions, in 1156, 
1480 and 1 5 10, to levy forced contributions upon the citizens, 
giving them in return perpetual annuities at certain rates per 
cent. The annuities due under the forced loan of 11 56 
were, however, finally extinguished in the sixteenth century ; 
and the offices for the payment of the annuities due under 
the other two loans having been consolidated, eventually 
became the Bank of Venice. This might be effected as 
follows : The interest on the loan to government being paid 
punctually, every claim registered in the books of the of^ce 
would be considered as a productive capital ; and these 
claims, or the right of receiving the annuity accruing thereon, 
must soon have been transferred, by demise or cession, from 
one person to another. This practice would naturally 
suggest to holders of stock the simple and easy method of 
discharging their united debts by transfers on the ofifice 
books, and as soon as they became sensible of the advantages 
to be derived from this method of accounting, bank-money 
was invented. It will, however, be seen that the establish- 



392 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

ment thus described was at first no more than the transfer 
office of a national debt, transfers of which were accepted at 
par in discharge of private debts, and it is indeed said that 
the funded debt transferred sometimes commanded a 
premium above the current money of the republic. This 
establishment was ruined, after passing through many 
changes, by the invasion of the French in 1797. 

The business of banking does not appear to have been 
introduced into England until the seventeenth century. Its 
first appearance in that country was under the management 
of London goldsmiths, who borrowed the idea from Holland. 
It found bitter enemies at first. In a pamphlet published in 
1676, entitled, "The Mystery of the New-Fashioned Gold- 
smiths or Bankers Discovered," there is this passage : " Much 
about the time of the civil commotion the goldsmiths, or 
new-fashioned bankers, began to receive the rents of gentle- 
men's estates remitted to town, and to allow them, and 
others, who put cash into their hands, some interest for it, 
if it remained but a single month in their hands. This was 
a great allurement for people to put money into their hands 
which would bear interest till the day they wanted it ; and 
they could also draw it out by one hundred pounds or fifty 
pounds at a time, as they wanted it, with infinitely less 
trouble than if they had lent it out on real or personal 
security. The consequence was that it quickly brought a 
great quantity of cash into their hands, so that the chief or 
greatest of them was now enabled to supply Cromwell with 
money in advance, on the revenues, as his occasion required, 
upon great advantages to themselves." From this it is seen 
that upon its introduction into England, banking was 
regarded as a*selfish, questionable scheme for money-making, 
without any benefit accruing to the country. 

The foundation of the Bank of England was practically 
the beginning of modern banking. And the distrust with 
which banking was at first regarded in England must have 
speedily turned into favor, for the Bank of England was 
established by act of Parliament in 1694, receiving its charter, 



THE BANK OF ENGLAND. 393 

under the great seal, on the twenty-seventh of July, of that 
year. This is the greatest bank of circulation in Europe, and 
the greatest bank of deposit in Great Britain. Its principal 
projector was a William Patterson, a Scotchman. At the 
time of its establishment the English government was heavily 
embarrassed for want of money, partly arising from defects 
of taxation, and partly from the supposed instability of the 
revolutionary establishment. The Bank grew out of a loan 
of nearly six million dollars, for the use of the public service. 
The subscribers were to receive eight per cent on the sum 
advanced as interest, and also about twenty-three thousand 
dollars a year to meet the expense of management. The 
subscribers were incorporated into a society denominated the 
governor and company of the Bank of England. 

In 1697, the Bank was allowed by renewal of charter, 
under William III., to enlarge its capital stock by an engraft- 
ment of about six million dollars. This engraftment is said 
to have been made for the support of the pubHc credii. 

In 1708, the credit of the government was good, and it 
borrowed at six per cent. In this year the Bank canceled 
exchequer bills to the amount of ten million dollars, and at 
the same time doubled its capital. In 1716, the Bank can- 
celed about twelve million dollars of bills ; while the interest 
was reduced to five per cent. 

In 1 72 1, the Bank purchased stock in the South Sea 
Company, to the amount of over twenty million dollars ; and 
the following year, in consequence of the subscriptions it had 
taken in to enable it to purchase this stock, its capital was 
again enlarged, which now amounted to nearly fifty million 
dollars ; and it had advanced in about a quarter of a century 
over fifty million dollars to the public. 

The capital of the Bank on which dividends are paid has 
never exactly coincided with, though it has never differed 
very materially from, the permanent advance by the bank to 
the public. 

The Bank of England has been frequently affected by 
panics ; at one time being reduced to the necessity of paying 



394 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

in sixpences. In 1745, the alarm occasioned by the advance 
of the Highlanders, under the Pretender, as far as Derby, led 
to a run upon the Bank; and in order to gain time to effect 
measures for averting the run, the directors adopted the 
device of paying in shillings and sixpences. Subsequently 
the Bank derived effectual relief by the retreat of the High- 
landers, and from a resolution agreed to at a meeting of the 
principal merchants and traders of the city, and very numer- 
ously signed by them, declaring the willingness of the sub- 
scribers to receive bank notes in payment of any sum that 
might be due to them, and pledging themselves to use their 
utmost endeavors to make all their payments in the same 
medium. This public confidence undoubtedly saved the 
Bank's credit in that panic. 

During the terrible riots of June, 1780, the Bank incurred 
considerable danger. Had the mob attacked the establish- 
ment at the commencement of the riots, the consequences 
would have been fatal. But in the delay of the attack time 
was afforded to provide a force sufficient to insure safety. 
Since that time a considerable military force occupies the 
Bank every night as a protection in any emergency that may 
occur. 

The dividend of the Bank has varied according to the 
variations in the rate of the interest which it has, at different 
times, received for the money it has advanced to the public, 
as well as according to other circumstances. This rate of 
interest has gradually been reduced from eight to three 
per cent. 

The stability of the Bank of England is equal to that of 
the British government. All that it has advanced to the 
public must be lost before its creditors can sustain any loss. 
No other banking company in England can be established 
by act of parliament, or can consist of more than six mem- 
bers. It acts not only as an ordinary bank, but as a great 
engine of state. It receives and pays the greater part of the 
annuities which are due to the creditors of the public, it cir- 
culates exchequer bills, and it advances to the government 



COUNTRY BANKS IN ENGLAND. 395 

the annual amount of the .land and malt taxes, which are 
frequently not paid up till some years thereafter. In those 
diflerent operations its duty to the public may sometimes 
have obliged it, without any fault of its directors, to over- 
stock the circulation with paper money. It likewise 
discounts merchants' bills, and has upon several different 
occasions supported the credit of the principal houses, not 
only of England, but of Hamburg and Holland. Upon one 
occasion, in 1763, it is said to have advanced for this pur- 
pose, in one week, about six million dollars, a great part of 
it in bullion. 

Banks were early established in towns outside of London. 
The still existing house of Smith and Company, of Notting- 
ham, claims to have been founded in 1688. Most of these 
banks issued their own notes, payable only to bearer. Up 
to 1759 the Bank of England had not issued any notes for 
less than twenty pounds — about one hundred and thirteen 
dollars and sixty cents. In this year it issued notes for ten 
pounds. The country bankers put in circulation notes for 
such small amounts that parliament enacted that none 
should be issued for less than one pound. In 1777 this mini- 
mum was raised to five pounds, but in spite of this restric- 
tion the issues of the small country bankers become danger- 
ously multiplied. At the close of the war of 1776 with 
America the trade and business of England rapidly increased, 
this gave fresh impulse to small banking establishments. 
The number increased in less than ten years from under one 
hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty. A banking 
house was opened in almost every town. The commercial 
affairs of these establishments were conducted very loosely. 
All sorts of bank-paper was forced into circulation, and 
enjoyed nearly the same degree of esteem. Credit of every 
kind was most severely strained. 

The financial panic which followed was a legitimate con- 
sequence. The great redundancy of currency created a dis- 
trust in the exchanges in 1792. Men were afraid to exchange 
one commodity for another. The country bank issues soon 



396 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

found a difficulty of being recognized in London. Notwith- 
standing the Bank of England tried to mitigate the pressure, 
a violent revulsion to bank issues took place in the latter part 
of 1792 and the beginning of the following year. The failure 
of one or two leading houses brought the panic to open dis- 
aster, and general distress followed in all branches of trade. 
Out of three hundred and fifty banking houses in England 
and Wales, fully three hundred were compelled to stop 
payments, producing by their fall an extent of misery and 
bankruptcy till then unknown in England. The history 
of this financial crisis in England clearly shows that it was 
produced by the excess of paper money which was forced 
into circulation. 

The year 1797 was a critical one for English banking. 
Owing to the pressure of the late war, heavy loans to Ger- 
many, large demands on the Bank by the British agents in 
other lands, and the constant advances made the government, 
large sums were drawn from the Bank. Fears were enter- 
tained of an invasion, and this gave fuel to the grave appre- 
hensions. Runs were made on the country banks, and a 
number having failed, the panic became general, and 
extended to London. Demands poured in with such per- 
sistency that the Bank, on Saturday, February 25, 1797, had 
less than six million dollars in cash and bullion in its vaults, 
with every prospect of a violent run taking place on the 
Monday following. The council of the Bank hastily met and 
passed orders to prevent any more payments in cash until 
the opinion of Parliament could be taken on the crisis. Par- 
liament hurriedly assembled and went into private session on 
the question of the hour. When the decision was finally 
reached, it was to determine that the restriction should 
continue as long as the country was unsettled by war. 
Measures were taken, and successfully, to make the Bank 
notes equivalent to cash. In this way the crisis was bridged 
over. This run did not occur through any over issue of 
paper money, but through a combination of circumstances 
which produced a panic. Therefore the action of the gov- 



THE BANK CRISES. 39/ 

ernment in stopping payments was only a measure of public 
interest, and was perfectly justifiable. 

It had been thought, prior to the passage of this restric- 
tion act, that bank notes would not circulate unless they 
were convertible into cash at once. This crisis showed the 
error of this supposition. Though the notes of the Bank of 
England were not by this act declared to be legal tender, 
yet they were virtually made so by the habit of the govern- 
ment in receiving them as payments in cash. For a few 
years the confidence in these notes was so strong that they 
not only were on a par with gold, but actually bore a small 
premium. In 1801 the number of these notes was so 
increased that their face value fell to a discount which 
gradually run down to ten per cent below par. In 1804 
they recovered, and until 1808 stood at a discount of two 
and a half per cent. In 18 10 the directors made a blunder 
and increased the circulation from one hundred million to 
one hundred and thirty million dollars. The issues of 
country bank paper increased still more rapidly; as there 
was no proportionate increase in the business of the country, 
the pressure became violent, and in 18 10 the discount run as 
low as sixteen per cent below par. 

This fall of paper money greatly disturbed the exchange, 
and consequently the industry of the country. Finally the 
house of commons appointed a committee to examine into 
the state of affairs. The report charged the trouble this 
time to an over issue of paper money, and advised that the 
Bank be directed to return to specie payment. The advice 
was unheeded. The issue went on ; and the maximum of 
depreciation was reached in 18 14, when it was twenty-five 
per cent below par. At this time there were nine hundred 
banking establishments in England. These were, with the 
trade of the whole country, mostly swallowed up in the 
general bankruptcy of 18 16. The Bank of England sought 
relief by extending the field of its operations. In 18 19 the 
bill of Sir Robert Peel provided for a return to specie in 
1823. The Bank having a large quantity of gold in its 



39^ THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

vaults, actually began specie payments on the first of May, 
1821. 

The failure to make provision by which this paper money 
would be curtailed, and what was in circulation, to some 
extent, at least, lifted, produced fresh trouble. The resump- 
tion in 1823 produced a public confidence that extended to 
the infatuation of all sorts of wild schemes. Every person 
thought the time had come to become wealthy. Money was 
wanted at any price, and in 1825 the paper money afloat 
was eighty per cent more than in 1823. This redundancy 
of money brought a reaction as speedy as it was severe. 
The l^ank of England entered into an agreement with the 
government to pay off all holders of four per cent stock of 
the Bank as dissented from converting it into three and a 
half per cent stock. When the depression occurred, the 
Bank was compelled to advance a large sum to meet the fall. 
This produced a recoil from the flush condition of three 
years before that was appalling. All classes of depositors 
hurried to take up their deposits. The ruin was so sudden 
that in less than two months seventy banking establishments 
Avent under. This terrible crash swept away nearly fifty 
millions of dollars for the Bank of England, and it is a 
wonder how it stood the frightful test. On the twenty- 
eighth of Februar}', 1826, the bullion in the Bank only 
amounted to a little over ten millions of dollars. 

The impression had settled into a conviction throughout 
England that the financial panics were hastened and made 
more severe by the loose system of country banking than by 
aught else. This was lifting part of the fault from the Bank 
of England, where it largel}- belonged. Measures were taken 
to restrict, and for several j'cars the direction of nearly 
all legislation on the money question was to restrain the 
country banks. 

A law was passed favoring joint stock banks. But 1835 
brought a panic Avhich left only eleven in the whole country. 
The drain on the specie of the Bank of England set in again 
with frightful fury. The history of the distress of 1835 in 



THE LONDON CLEARING-HOUSE. 399 

England shows the folly of leaving the issue of paper money 
to the selfishness and greed of bank directors. 

The best legislation the money question in England ever 
received was in 1844 and 1845, when Robert Peel undertook 
its entire revision. The substance of the policy of Peel was 
to provide against the danger of an over-issue, by making 
paper money dependent on the amount of coin and bullion 
in the Bank of England. Under this policy, the notes of 
the Bank of England are made equivalent to gold, and are 
practically legal tender. Since that year the bank manage- 
ment of England has been sound and wise, and the failures 
have been few. 

Banking, as conducted in England for over thirty years, 
has wonderfully developed the methods for economizing 
money. Persons having small sums can deposit them for 
interconvertible paper and secure a constant interest. Since 
it is known that an over issue of bank notes cannot be made, 
the public confidence is strong in the banks, and persons 
readily deposit sums of a small amount. 

One peculiarity about the banking business in London is 
the clearing-house. It was established over a century ago. 
Before it existed the clerk of each bank had to go to the 
places of business of all the other bankers in the city to 
collect the sums payable by them on checks and bills. Much 
time was consumed by this process, a large quantity of 
money was in constant carriage on the street and subject to 
risk. In 1775 the clearing-house was established, as a place 
where the clerks of the different banks could daily assemble 
to exchange the checks drawn upon, and bills payable at, 
their respective houses. In this way but little money is 
carried over the street, and the business is done in a few 
moments, while before the risks of carriage were great and 
the work frequently took the time of one clerk for a whole 
day to do the collection for a single bank. 

In the management of the Bank of England, as conducted 
at present, there is observed no difference except that its 
bank notes are now legal tender everywhere, except at the 



400 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

bank. By this it is thought that a note will be considered 
equivalent to its face in specie in the remotest part of Eng- 
land as readily as at the desk of the cashier of the bank. 

In no country is the value of public banking more plainly 
seen than in the history of Scotland. The business of the 
country is almost entirely carried on by means of the paper 
of the banks. Silver and gold very seldom appear. It was 
estimated that the trade of the city of Glasgow was doubled 
in fifteen years upon the establishment of banks there. The 
two main public banks of the country are the Bank of Scot- 
land and the Royal Bank, both located at Edinburgh. 

The commerce of Scotland was most lamentably incon- 
siderable when the two first banking companies were estab- 
lished ; and those companies would have had but little trade, 
had they confined their business to discounting bills of 
exchange. They invented, therefore, another method of 
issuing their promissory notes ; by granting, what they called, 
cash accounts: that is by giving credit to the extent of a 
certain sum to any individual who could procure two persons 
of undoubted credit and good landed estate to become surety 
for him, that whatever money should be advanced to him, 
within the sum for which the credit had been given, should 
be repaid upon demand, together with the legal interest. 
Credits of this kind are commonly granted by banks and 
bankers in all different parts of the world. But the easy 
terms upon which the Scotch banking companies accept of 
repayment are peculiar to them, and have, perhaps, been the 
principal cause, both of the great trade of those companies, 
and of the benefit which the country has received from them. 

Whoever has a credit of this kind with one of those com- 
panies, and borrows a thousand pounds upon it, for example, 
may repay this sum piecemeal, by twenty and thirty pounds 
at a time, the company discounting a proportionable part of 
the interest of the great sum from the day on which each of 
those small sums is paid in, till the whole be in this manner 
repaid. All merchants, therefore, and almost all men of busi- 
ness, find it convenient to keep such cash accounts with them. 



THE MISTAKE IN SCOTLAND. 401 

and are thereby interested to promote the trade of those 
companies, by readily receiving their notes in all payments, and 
by encouraging all those with whom they have any influence 
to do the same. The banks, when their customers apply to 
them for money, generally advance it to them in their own 
promissory notes. These the merchants pay away to the 
manufacturers for goods, the manufacturers to the farmers 
for materials and provisions, the farmers to their landlords 
for rent, the landlords repay them to the merchants for the 
conveniences and luxuries with which they supply them, and 
the merchants again return them to the banks in order to 
balance their cash accounts, or to replace what they may 
have borrowed of them; and thus almost the whole money- 
business of the country is transacted by means of them. 
Hence the great trade of those companies. For by means of 
these cash accounts every merchant can carry on a greater 
trade than he otherv/ise could. 

Banking in Scotland had an experience just opposite of 
that in England. While the tendency in England had been, 
until restrained by government, to over-issue, that of con- 
servative Scotland was to have an under-issue of notes, and 
to exercise great prudence in granting credit. This finally 
brought down upon the banks the public censure. The 
distress of trade, which had been felt for a short time, it 
was said, was owing to the bad conduct of the banks, which 
did not give sufificiently liberal aid to the spirited under- 
takings of those who had public enterprise at heart. It was 
thought to be the duty of the banks to lend for as long a 
time and to as great extent as was wanted by any person. 
The banks, however, by refusing to give more credit to 
those to whom they had already given too much, took the 
only method by which it was possible to save their own 
credit and that of the country. 

In the midst of this clamor and distress, a new bank was 

established in Scotland for the express purpose of relieving 

the distress of the country. The design was generous ; but 

the enterprise was imprudent, and the nature of the causes 

26 



402 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of the distress which it meant to reheve, were not, perhaps,, 
well understood. This bank was more liberal than any other 
had ever been, both in granting cash accounts, and in dis- 
counting bills of exchange. With regard to the latter, it 
seems to have made scarce any distinction between real and 
circulating bills, but to have discounted all equally. It was 
the avowed principle of this bank to advance, upon any reason- 
able security, the whole capital which was to be employed in 
those improvements of which the returns are the most slow 
and distant, such as the improvements of land. To promote 
such improvements was even said to be the chief of the 
public-spirited purposes for which it was instituted. By its 
liberality in granting cash accounts, and in discounting bills 
of exchange, it, no doubt, issued great quantities of its bank 
notes. But those bank notes being, the greater part of 
them, over and above what the circulation of the country 
could easily absorb and employ, returned upon it, in order to 
be exchanged for gold and silver, as fast as they were issued. 
Its coffers were never well filled. The capital which had 
been subscribed to this bank at two different subscriptions, 
amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of 
which eighty per cent only was paid up. This sum ought to 
have been paid in at several different installments. A great 
part of the proprietors, when they paid in their first install- 
ment, opened a cash account with the bank; and the direc- 
tors thinking themselves obliged to treat their own propri- 
etors with the same liberality with which they treated all 
other men, allowed many of them to borrow upon this cash 
account what they paid in upon all their subsequent install- 
ments. Such payments, therefore, only put into one coffer, 
what had a moment before been taken out of another. But 
had the coffers of this bank been filled never so well, its 
excessive circulation must have emptied them faster than they 
could have been replenished by any other expedient but the 
ruinous one of drawing upon London, and when the bill 
became due, paying it, together with interest and commis- 
sion, by another draft upon the same place. Its coffers hav- 



FALL OF THE AYR BANK. 403 

ing been filled so very ill, it is said to have been driven to this 
resource within a very few months after it began to do busi- 
ness. The estates of the proprietors of this bank were worth 
several millions, and by their subscription to the original bond 
or contract of the bank, were really pledged for answering 
all its engagements. By means of the great credit which so 
great a pledge necessarily gave it, it was, nothwithstanding 
its too liberal conduct, enabled to carry on business for more 
than two years, when it was obliged to stop. 

This was called the Ayr Bank. In a little over two years 
it had advanced to different people, about four million 
dollars, at five per cent ; while for the money it was con- 
stantly drawing from London it was paying in the way of 
interest and commission eight per cent, and was consequently 
losing more than three per cent on its dealings. The 
operations of the bank, therefore, instead of bringing relief, 
brought still greater distress. The only way out of this 
financial misery was the natural laws of trade. 

The prevailing system of banking in the United States 
before the late war, was that of each state permitting the 
establishment of banks for the issue of notes payable in specie 
on demand. The constitution gives to congress the right to 
regulate and control the money and coinage. Under this 
provision, in the year of 1791, the United States Bank was 
established. When the charter expired, at the end of twenty 
years, in 181 1, many wanted it renewed, while many were 
just as bitter against it ; and it was not till after several years' 
experience of the monentary embarrassments which ensued, 
that the Bank of the United States was rechartered, in 18 16, 
for twenty years. Its capital was to consist of seven millions 
of dollars in gold and silver, and twenty-eight millions in 
specie, or United States stocks, to be received at various rates. 
The government was to subscribe seven millions of this capital, 
and to draw from it a proportionate income. One and a half 
millions of dollars were paid in installments by the Bank for its 
charter. In addition to the general reasons in favor of the 
usefulness and necessity of such an institution, it was affirmed 



404 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

that a national bank creates a uniform medium of exchange 
between the different states of the Union ; facilitates all the 
transactions of commerce ; takes charge of the surplus funds 
of the government, attends to its receipts and payments in 
the several states, and compels the smaller and local banks to 
adopt a reasonable and just course of proceeding, which, 
hitherto, they had by no means done. 

In 1817 the Bank had entered into such wild speculations 
that its paper fell from one hundred and fifty-six to ninety. 
And again was repeated the evil of the English bank system 
— the insatiable passion for issuing paper without limit. 
The tendency of this has always been to produce a disorded 
state of the currency. Webster strongly says : " A disorded 
currency is one of the greatest of political evils. It under- 
mines the virtues necessary for the support of the social 
system, and encourages propensities destructive of its happi- 
ness. It wars against industry, frugality and economy, and 
it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. 
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of 
mankind, none has been more effectual than that which 
deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual 
of inventions to fertilize the rich man's field by the sweat 
of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, 
excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of 
the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent cur- 
rencies and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. 
Our own history has recorded for our instruction enough, 
and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the 
injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous and 
well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by 
law, or in any way countenanced by government." 

There were a few facts in confirmation of these just com- 
plaints. In the years 1812 to 18 14 most of the banks stopped 
payment; between 181 1 and 1830, one hundred and sixty-five 
of them became entirely bankrupt or contracted their busi- 
ness. In 1787, there were three banks; in 1839, there were 
eight hundred and fifty, and, together with the branches. 



STABILITY OF AMERICAN BANKING. 405 

about one thousand. Of these, four hundred and ninety- 
eight continued specie payments, fifty-six stopped alto- 
gether, forty-eight afterward resumed payments, while sixty 
partially stopped specie payments, and three hundred and 
forty-three wholly stopped specie payments. With these 
there were connected in New York, between January and 
July, about one thousand bankruptcies. The entire capital 
of a bank in lUinois consisted in the plates for striking off 
the notes. In another branch bank two dollars only were 
paid in, which were kept as curiosities. 

But this bad showing only covered a period when 
unbridled speculation ran rife everywhere. The general 
showing of the United States banking system, especially for 
the last twenty-two years, has been a good one. English 
travelers in this country have expressed a surprise that while 
a provincial bank note of some English country bank can 
hardly be passed in London, a bank note in the United 
States finds currency in New York or Dakota without being 
questioned. And while there have been periods of fluctua- 
tion and times of panic, they have mostly been caused by 
circumstances lying outside of the monetary system of the 
country. And it is one of the things of which an American 
may justly feel proud that for a new country there has been 
less mismanagement of the finances than can be exhibited by 
any other modern nation. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

DIFFERENT KINDS OF BANKS. 

BANKING has several functions, which really give form 
to different classes of banks. These functions may 
exist separately or together. The four leading kinds of 
banks are: The bank of deposit, that of exchange, of dis- 
count, and the bank of issue. In most cases, perhaps, two or 
more of these ofifices are transacted in one bank. A bank of 
issue is almost always a bank of loan, also a bank of deposit 
is one of loan. 

Banks of deposit are a public benefaction. To reduce 
the labor and danger of the transfer and carriage of specie, 
especially in large sums, these banks are brought into requi- 
sition, and in their vaults there may safely be deposited the 
united treasures of a community or a nation. The parties 
making these deposits are credited in the bank's books, with 
the sums received of them. To the extent of this credit 
they can at any time draw upon the bank, and their draft is 
honored at sight. But the very reason that this draft may 
be at any time presented, and the money obtained upon 
it, while in its present form it is more convenient than that 
money, would dissuade most from seeking its payment ; 
and the draft, passing from hand to hand, may accomplish a 
large amount of exchange, and finally, falling into the hands 
of one already having deposits, be presented and payment 
be made by a transfer of its amount in the books of the 
bank to his credit. Or, certificates of deposit may be given, 
and these pass from debtor to creditor, in the place of the 
sums represented in them. Or, without either certificate or 
draft, the transactions of a community may represent them- 
selves in dumb show in the records of the bank, and a few rep- 
resentative figures take the place in transfer of large weights 

406 



THE BANK OF AMSTERDAM. 407 

in coin. In connection with any or all of these methods, at 
the close of each year a rapid balancing of accounts in the 
books of the bank or banks, with a few slight specie pay- 
ments, will adjust the complicated exchanges of a whole 
year. A few strokes of the pen are equivalent to the count- 
ing out and transfer of gold and silver, in any sums whatever. 
Thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars can pass 
and repass with as much facility and safety as the incidental 
payments of the hour; and while the specie lies untouched 
and untarnished in its vaulted chambers, the certificate of 
ownership may be transferred and retransferred, added and 
divided, and through all the shifting phases of exchange, 
strew the coin in petty purchases, or heap it in heavy pay- 
ments. The largest transactions are so quickly accom- 
plished, and represented in so brief a compass, that they 
possess the ease of a penny purchase. 

For the safety, facility and economy of time, labor and 
wear, which it affords, the bank obtains a slight percentage 
on deposits, according to the period for which they are 
made, or makes a charge on each transaction. 

The Bank of Amsterdam was purely a bank of deposit. 
It received the specie of the merchants of the city, and gave 
them acknowledgments which were transferable like specie; 
and, by the transfer of these on the books of the bank, all 
large payments were universally made. And so great was 
the confidence in the management of the Bank that certifi- 
cates of these deposits were current throughout Europe. 
Adam Smith attributes the origin of this Bank to the desire 
of the Dutch to prevent their coin from migrating into the 
surrounding states, and being replaced by the inferior and 
debased coin, with which they were liable to be inundated. 

The extent to which drafts and various kinds of bank 
paper are used in preference to money, is shown in a little 
incident in the career of James A. Garfield. In 1871 Mr. 
Garfield asked the comptroller of the currency to issue an 
order to fifty-two banks, to be divided among large cities, 
small cities and country towns, to report their receipts, 



■;ijr. 



408 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

analyzed for six consecutive days. And when the report 
came in it was found that during those six days one hundred 
and fifty-seven milHon dollars were received over the counters 
of the fifty-two banks ; and of that amount, nineteen million 
three hundred and seventy thousand dollars — twelve per 
cent only — was in cash, and eighty-eight per cent was in 
checks, drafts and commercial paper. From this it is seen 
what an important part bank paper takes in the vast exchange 
of the United States. 

The bank of exchange is that which deals in drafts on 
banks. This is frequently simply a function of banks of loan 
and discount ; while in the large cities this ofifice of exchange 
becomes the distinct function of a bank. The coin of one 
nation cannot meet with general favor in another nation, 
because the relative value is not known. An immigrant 
from Europe coming to the United States, will find difficulty 
in making payment with his thaler; but he can exchange 
his thalers for American dollars in the exchange banks 
of New York city, and he is supplied with American 
money. Persons going to Europe from this country will 
shortly call at the exchange banks for those same thalers. 
But a more important and extensive business of this kind is 
needed to provide for payments to be made in distant and 
foreign places, by drafts and bills of exchange. A genuine 
draft on Chicago is acceptable in all the northwestern states. 
A draft on New York is good in any part of our country. 
A bill of exchange on London will command money for its 
possessor in any city of the civilized world. Banks, through 
the credit they have with each other, are prepared to furnish 
their customers with orders of this kipd as they may desire, 
their payment being for the most part actually made by the 
exchange of goods shipped to and fro. The banks charge a 
slight premium for exchange of this kind, the rate varying 
with the balance of trade between different places. The 
daily newspapers of leading cities give the prices-current for 
exchange as they do for goods bought and sold. 

The advantage of this kind of banking every man who is 



ADVANTAGE OF SAVINGS BANKS. 409 

compelled to travel is conversant with. Were it not for the 
exchange office of banking, every man going to the far west 
would have to take with him money to meet all his expenses 
until his return home. Besides this, if he desired to use a 
large sum while in the west to purchase property, he would 
be compelled to take it 'all with him. This would be 
extremely hazardous. It could seldom be done without 
risk of loss of his money, and frequently the risk of life. _ 
For the rufifian will not only rob for money, but kill as well. 
Bank paper, which the robber has taken from a traveler, is 
worthless in his hands. But with our system of exchange 
banking, the man who needs money while in the west may 
purchase a draft on the Chemical Bank of New York and at 
any point in the west, where he can identify himself, he can 
have it cashed. Thus saved the risk of carrying money on 
his person, he is relieved of a great deal of anxiety. 

A third specie of banking is that of discount, or loan. In 
this class the largest representation is that of the savings 
banks. These banks, when well conducted, are highly 
benevolent; but they are also intended to remunerate the 
skill and capital employed. These banks have been much 
resorted to by the working classes, and they afford a method 
for saving and accumulating which could not otherwise be 
had in this country. A well-known bank presents a conven- 
ient and constantly accessible place at which money and 
applications for money may be presented, and the debtor 
and creditor are mutually relieved of all labor in finding each 
other, and adjusting the securities of the loan. Very much 
money existing in scattered sums is gathered into these 
institutions, and, while yielding a revenue to the owners, 
quickens production and swells the available capital of the 
country. Sums so small as not to be otherwise capable of a 
loan, here accumulated in large amounts, compounded and 
divided to suit the demand, are sent on services profitable to 
the creditor, the debtor and the bank. There are few insti- 
tutions in which the principles of economy have fuller play 
than in these. The skill and constant labor of a few persons 



410 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

take the place of the unskilled and random labor of very 
many. All the remnants of money are gathered in an avail- 
able form, and while stimulating industry at one point, and 
strengthening it at another, are made to yield a triple revenue. 

Such institutions are primarily fitted to act as agents for 
the working classes, and to reach the savings of labor and 
those small sums which are redeemed from a limited business 
or narrow revenue. Large sums in the hands of the wealthy 
can find a more profitable investment than these banks can 
afford. Owing to the necessary loss of time in effecting 
loans, and the loss of interest on the money retained in the 
bank, or constantly returning to it, with which sudden 
demands for payment are met, the bank cannot realize in its 
gross funds the full current rate; and as there must be a 
further deduction to meet the expenses of the bank, the 
terms offered to customers must always be sensibly below 
the rate of profits which capital, directly loaned or employed 
in business, is able to command. This class of banks, there- 
fore, can only present adequate inducements to those who 
chiefly wish to have their money securely kept and within 
reach, or who possess it in such small quantities as to make 
it incapable of profitable investment elsewhere. These 
banks have usually regulations restricting the amounts 
received, and are not meant to possess the function of 
deposit, as it belongs to banks of issue. 

Some banks, like those of Scotland, have kept a cash 
account bearing interest with customers, and, so far, been 
banks of loan. In that case, the money, from the time of 
deposit, drew a certain rate ; the person making the deposit 
was at liberty to increase it or to draw from it, according to 
the exigencies of his business, and the bank rate was allowed, 
at the close of the year, on the sums deposited in the bank, 
for the time in which they had been suffered to remain. It 
is evident that nearly all accruing on such an account would 
be to a business man a net gain, and that, with the most 
careful and skillful management on the part of the bank, the 
percentage allowed by it must be materially below that 



FAULT OF SAVINGS BANKS. 41I 

obtained by it. The funds reserved by business men for 
incidental expenses, or realized during the progress of the 
economic year, may, by this system, be made immediately 
available. Amid the multiplicity of customers, conditions 
tend to cancel each other; the rapid drawing of one finds 
compensation in the slowness of another; and the funds of 
the bank, discounted on short time, and flowing rapidly in 
and out, are able to meet the exigencies of all without sensi- 
ble abatement or interruption of its own loans. The skill 
required for the successful management of such an institu- 
tion, is of a high order, and it combines the functions of 
deposit and loan in their most economic form. 

The record of the savings banks in the United States has 
not been able to correspond with that of the savings banks 
of England. There does not seem to be afforded any sub- 
stantial security to investors. There seems to be no limit,, 
in most cases, to the investments which the directors may 
make, and they have frequently been of a speculative nature. 
The legislation of the country has, perhaps, been more faulty 
here than on any other side of the banking question. There 
have been so many of these institutions going down within a 
few years that it would, perhaps, be wise for the laboring 
class to carefully examine them before trusting to them their 
earnings. 

In many cases the failures have arisen from the enormous 
depreciation in the value of property, which has been 
accelerated by the rapid appreciation or increase in the value 
of greenbacks. But in far more cases it has been from mis- 
management, or the result of sheer and barefaced fraud. 
One of the largest of the savings banks at Chicago had a 
capital of one hundred thousand dollars, and deposits of 
over six millions of dollars. It occurred to an ingenious 
speculator that sixty thousand dollars, or twelve thousand 
pounds, invested in the capital of the bank would command 
the whole concern. He, therefore, bought shares to that 
amount, appointed himself and his friends directors, lent the 
money to himself, lost a good part of it, and when he could 



412 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

keep matters no longer afloat pocketed what was not lost, 
and went off to Paris, where he has since been living in good 
style, laughing at the credulous people who took him for an 
honest man. 

The fourth kind of banks is the bank of issue. Promissory 
notes are issued for general circulation ; these are a substitute 
for specie. Because the bank that issues bank notes, which 
is a kind of paper money, acts upon the currency of the 
country, it comes under the regulation of the government, 
and can only be established by charter. When the capital 
of a bank of issue is determined upon, it is divided into a 
given number of shares and opened for subscription. The 
subscribers of these shares become the stockholders of the 
bank. These shares pay annual dividends, and are themselves 
transferable, being at, above, or below par, according to their 
market price, which depends upon the profits of the bank 
stock. The basis of the operations of this kind of a bank is 
specie. This specie is really the security for the good faith 
of the promissory notes issued by the bank. As long as 
these are payable at the counter of the bank, and actually 
paid, when demand is made, in gold and silver, they readily 
circulate, and become a cheap and convenient currency. 

It is necessary to keep on hand large amounts of the 
precious metals, that these bills at all times and in all 
amounts may be redeemed. If the gold equals the bills, 
there is entire safety, but there is also no profit to the bank. 
If the gold is somewhat less than the bills, there is reason- 
able safety, and a profit to the bank equal to its discount on 
the difference. It is in the highest degree improbable that 
all the bills of the bank will be returned at any one time. 
Even in times of panic, when the run is general and pro- 
tracted, but a fraction of the bills actually out is usually 
presented, and, in all ordinary states of the money market, 
but a very small fraction is at any one time presented for 
payment. The reserved gold and silver can, therefore, be 
something less than the circulation of the bank. How much 
less? In the answer daily and practically made to this 



THE EVILS OF BANKS IN A PANIC. 413 

question lies the great difficulty. Theoretically, a safe num- 
ber might undoubtedly be given ; but how shall it be secured 
that all banks shall adhere to this number? We might say 
that gold, to the extent of one half, or even of one third," 
of the bills in circulation, would be sufficient ; but having 
said it, we do not thereby remove the temptation or the 
ability to exceed this number. The profits and the danger 
lie in the same direction ; it is the extra bills which endanger 
the currency and enrich the banks. The arguments by which 
these profits are reached are exceedingly plausible. To 
correct this tendency of over-issue, or this excess of bank 
circulation, as compared with the specie retained, various 
methods have been devised, some more, some less, successful. 
Certain amounts of specie have been enjoined by law, and 
officers appointed to inspect the banks and enforce the 
regulation. In practice, such laws have been found to be 
generally and easily evaded, and unable to reach the end 
proposed by them. The honesty of the government is never 
so great as to atone for the want of honesty in the people. 
A thing once permitted will be well or illy done, according 
to the character of those to whom it is permitted. A specu- 
lating, money-loving people, with only ordinary honesty, will 
do what is entrusted to them, when a strife arises between 
their own and the public interest, with no more than ordi- 
nary integrity; nor will they often so appoint a committee 
over themselves, as much to modify their action. 

A second, and not more successful, device has been that 
of requiring certain state stocks or land securities to be 
pledged for the redemption of bills. This remedy does not 
provide for the principal danger. It is not a question of 
ultimate, but of immediate, payment, which is at issue in a 
panic. The fear is not allayed by the assurance that all 
demands shall be finally met ; it regards it rather as a con- 
fession of present weakness. With a class of persons from 
whom most danger is to be apprehended, those who them- 
selves are under pressure, or who act ignorantly and by 
impulse, swelling the throng without knowing why, this 



414 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

consideration would avail little. Neither is the safety fund 
— a very similar scheme, by which the banks are mutually 
pledged to each other — so far as it looks to the ultimate 
redemption of bills, any more able to give aid in the pressure 
of a general panic. Coin, instant, solid and unrestricted, is 
the remedy, because at this point lies the doubt. 

The point of interest and danger does not consist so 
much in the amount of the circulation of a bank as in the 
relation of that circulation to its specie. A bank cannot at 
pleasure enlarge its circulation. The forces which receive 
or reject its bills are not under its control. It may make 
every effort to push its bills out, but it cannot determine 
that they will remain out. If these bills are redeemable, 
and at par, they must take the place of equivalent amounts 
of gold, and therefore can only work themselves into circu- 
lation by expelling gold from the currency, or by occupying 
the new ground which business in a growing community 
may present. A given amount of business of exchange 
demands and will suffer only a given amount of money. If 
any addition is made, there is an immediate and correspond- 
ing depression in the aggregate value of the medium ; and if 
that medium is gold, and therefore its value sustained by its 
price in the world's market, any attempt to force bills into 
a full circulation will result, first, in their rejection ; later, if 
the effort is continued and vigorous, in the exportation 
of gold, that these may take its place. 

The bills forced upon the circulation will tend to reduce 
the currency in value ; that is, the value of gold and silver at 
home, as compared with the foreign value. This will natu- 
rally result in an exportation of the precious metals, and in 
order that these may be obtained, many bills will be returned 
to the banks. These banks will then be under the necessity 
of replacing their specie. The specie so removed, together 
with that already transported, which was before in the hands 
of individuals, will make room in the currency for the perma- 
nent presence of bills. As this process proceeds, specie will 
be obtained with increasing difficulty, and the burden of 



ADVANTAGE OF SMALL BILLS. 415 

furnishing it for exportation and replacing it in their vaults, 
thrown more and more exclusively on the banks. When 
this movement is passing to its completion, and specie is no 
longer readily obtainable, any bank that enlarges its issue 
will find its bills almost immediately returned to its counter, 
and the power that throws them from the currency invinci- 
ble and stubborn. Its specie will be rapidly extracted, its 
deposits made in its own bills, and all its movements 
cramped and embarrassed, indicating that it is operating in 
a field already occupied. 

If two thirds of the whole currency is to be paper, and 
this paper currency is to have a basis in the precious metals 
of one third of its own nominal value, then there is four 
ninths of the whole currency which is open to the circulation 
of banks beyond the bills representing their reserved specie. 
Here is a certain amount of circulation of profits to be 
divided among all banks, and in proportion as these banks 
are few, the share of each will be large, as they are many, 
small. This is the aggregate of gain ; and banks may com- 
pete with each other for it, but they cannot increase it. 

To secure a larger share of circulation, banks have several 
devices. Chief among these is the use of small bills. The 
larger bills being mostly employed in the wholesale trade, 
and hence confined to the cities, are constantly passing as 
deposits or in payments of loans, into the banks. Small 
bills, however, go out into the byways of the retail trade, 
and may go far and remain out long before finding their way 
back again to the bank which issued them. This has given 
a decided preference to small bills among bankers. They 
pay better. And it gives an advantage to a country over a 
city bank, and enables it to have out a larger constant circu- 
lation. The tendency resulting from this pressure of the 
circulation of small bills is unfortunate in the currency. 
These small bills expel gold and silver from transactions 
whose necessities they can perfectly meet, and, by narrowing 
the basis of the currency, make it proportionately insecure. 
The restriction of issues to bills whose lowest denomination 



41 6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

should be ten dollars, would help also to remove the tempta- 
tion and the ability from banks to unduly enlarge their 
circulation. The abandonment of its function of establishing 
and regulating currency, on the part of the general govern- 
ment, and our division into states here works a mischief. 
The action of no one state can relieve the difficulty, but 
only prepares the way for the enhanced profits of its neigh- 
bors, and a yet worse attitude of its own currency. The 
circulation between the states often dooms us to the evils 
of the worst of their several currencies, and robs us of the 
benefit of the best. 

There are four principal ways in which banks make their 
profits. First, they make large profits from their deposits. 
As banks are extensively used for this purpose, they must 
have on hand at all times a considerable amount from this 
source lying idle. This may be considered a part of their 
capital which they may use in their business. If a bank 
have on an average fifty thousand dollars of deposits, it may 
loan to a considerable amount beyond what would otherwise 
be in its power, because it has this additional amount of 
means wherewith to meet the demands made upon it. The 
first source of profit is therefore interest gained on deposits. 

A second source of profit is from exchanges. As these 
are to be made between different places and as they must be 
made in drafts or in specie : if two banks in different places 
undertake to transact this business in concert, they may 
greatly facilitate the means of payment between two places. 
For this accommodation they charge a percentage, varying 
with the rate of the market. In some banks this produces 
quite a revenue. 

Another means of profit is that of discount, and interest 
on notes discounted, as well as on regular loans. If a man 
takes a note on some reliable person, not due for one year, 
to a bank, he may get money for it, less a certain discount. 
The amount of this discount is profit to the bank. And the 
bank also secures the interest on that note from that 
date until it is paid. This is a great source of revenue. 



BANK CIRCULATION. 417 

It has been seen that a bank may with safety loan an 
amount of its notes greater than that of its capital. The 
interest of this excess is an additional source of revenue. 
Thus, if a bank have one hundred' thousand dollars paid in, 
and issue notes to the amount of one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand dollars, it receives interest on twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars more than its stockholders have deposited. 
This is an addition to its revenue, by its amount, whatever 
it may be. 
S7 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL BANK SYSTEM. 

BY an act of February 25, 1863, a bureau was established^ 
charged with the execution of the laws passed by 
congress relating to the currency, the chief officer of which 
is called the comptroller of the currency. His salary is five 
thousand dollars per year, and he performs his duties under 
the general direction of the secretary of the treasury. The 
comptroller is appointed by the president on the recommend- 
ation of the secretary of the treasury and with the consent 
of the senate. He holds his office for five years, unless 
removed by the president upon reasons communicated by 
him to the senate. He gives bonds in the penalty of one 
hundred thousand dollars for the faithful performance of his 
duties. He has a deputy with a salary of two thousand five 
hundred dollars per year. 

The comptroller is charged with the examination of the 
national banks and the custody of all the plates and " other 
valuable things" belonging to his department. He has to 
make annually to congress a report of the most elaborate 
character, occupying a closely printed volume about three 
inches in thickness. It is his business to make arrangements 
for the examination of all the national banks, and upon him 
devolves the very responsible duty of recommending that 
banks, under certain circumstances, shall be liquidated or 
allowed to continue their business. 

The law provides that any number of natural persons, not 
less than five, may form a national bank. The capital must 
not be less than fifty thousand dollars where the population 
does not exceed six thousand, one hundred thousand dollars 
where the population is over six thousand, or two hundred 
thousand dollars where the population exceeds two hundred 

418 



SCIENCE OF NATIONAL BANKING. 419 

thousand, and in all cases one half of the amount must be paid 
up before a bank can commence business. The shareholders 
are held individually responsible, equally and rateably, and 
not one for another, for all contracts, debts, and engagements 
of such association to the extent of the amount of their stock 
therein, at the par value thereof, in addition to the amount 
invested in such shares. 

The private property of trustees is not liable, as the 
national bank act distinctly provides that, "persons holding 
stock, as executors, administrators, guardians or trustees, 
shall not be personally subject to any liabilities as stock- 
holders ; but the estates and funds in their hands shall be 
liable." 

All national banking associations, designated for that 
purpose by the secretary of the treasury, are depositories of 
public money. They must give satisfactory security, and 
must take and receive at par all national currency bills by 
whatever association issued. That is, a national bank must 
accept a bill issued by any other national bank in the country. 

Every national bank, before it commences business, must 
deposit with the treasurer of the United States any United 
States registered bonds bearing interest, to an amount not 
less than one third of the capital stock paid in. Powers of 
attorney are given to such a national bank to receive the 
interest on the bonds so transferred to the treasurer. Upon 
a deposit of bonds the association making the same are 
entitled to receive from the comptroller of the currency cir- 
culating notes equal to ninety per cent of the current market 
value of the bonds, but not exceeding ninety per cent of the 
par value thereof, if bearing interest of not less than five per 
cent per annum ; but the proportion of notes to the capital 
of the bank must not be more than 'ninety per cent on a 
capital not ejcceeding five hundred thousand dollars, eighty 
per cent where the capital does not exceed one million of 
dollars, seventy-five per cent where the capital does not 
exceed three millions, or sixty per cent where the capital 
exceeds three millions. 



420 THE SCIENCE OF NATI(3NAL LIFE. 

The expenses of printing notes and other expenses of the 
currency bureau are paid out of the proceeds of the taxes 
or duties collected on the circulation of national banking 
associations. 

A provision of the national bank act was, that " not more 
than one sixth part of the notes furnished to any association 
shall be of less denomination than five dollars. After specie 
payments are resumed no association shall be furnished with 
notes of a less denomination than five dollars." 

After the notes supplied by the treasury have been signed 
Dy the president or vice-president of the bank receiving these 
notes, they must be received at par in all parts of the United 
States, in payment of taxes, excises, public lands, and all 
other dues of the United States, except duties on imports. 

The imitation or defacement of any circulating note is 
prohibited. When a note becomes worn out or multilated, 
upon being returned to the comptroller, by the bank having 
issued it„ it is canceled and destroyed by maceration, and 
another note of equal amount is given in return. 

In all the large cities the national banks are required to 
have on hand, at all times, in lawful money of the United 
States, an amount equal to at least twenty-five per cent of 
the aggregate amount of its deposits, and banks in other 
than the larger cities must have fifteen per cent^ Whenever 
the amount falls below the standard required, the bank must 
not make any loans or discounts, nor make any dividend 
until the required proportion has been restored. And the 
comptroller is to notify any bank having this deficiency to 
make good such rule ; and if the bank shall fail, for thirty 
days thereafter, to make good its reserve of lawful money, 
the comptroller may, with the concurrence of the Secretary 
of the Treasury, appoint a receiver to wind up the business of 
the association. 

National banks may charge the rate of interest allowed 
by the laws of the state in which they carry on business; 
where no rate is fixed by the laws of the state, the banks 
may charge a rate not exceeding seven per cent. Twice the 



HOW NATIONAL BANKS ARE TAXED. 42 1 

amount of interest fixed may be recovered by any person 
who has been charged more than the legal rate. 

One tenth of the net profits made must be carried to the 
reserve fund, until that amounts to twenty per cent of its 
capital stock. Loans to one person or company must not 
exceed one tenth of the capital. Loans on their own stock 
are prohibited. All debts on which interest is past due, and 
unpaid for six months, shall be considered as bad debts. A 
list of shareholders is kept for inspection, and a copy sent 
annually to the comptroller. Every association must report 
to the comptroller five times annually, giving in detail the 
resources and liabilities of the association, which reports 
must be published in a local newspaper at the expense of 
the association. 

National banks can hardly be said to be taxed, yet every 
association pays to the treasurer of the United States, in the 
months of January and July, a duty of one half of one per cent 
each half year upon the average amount of notes in circula- 
tion, and a duty of one quarter of one per cent each half 
year upon the average amount of its deposits, and a duty of 
one quarter of one per cent each half year on the average 
amount of its capital stock beyond the amount invested 
in United States bonds. In the Bank Act is this clause: 
." Nothing herein shall be construed to exempt the shares or 
real property of associations from either state, county, or 
municipal taxes." 

The efificient management of this great banking system 
is largely due to the judicious exercise of discretion on the 
part of the comptroller. The exigencies of the agricultural 
population require very large advances during the few weeks 
immediately preceding the harvest, and in some of the 
national banks the amount is often reduced to four or five 
per cent, with the knowledge and consent of the comptroller. 

From about 1875 to 1880, national banks like all other 
financial institutions in the United States have been sub- 
jected to a strain of almost unprecedented severity. The 
reaction of inflation had been destructive to credit, and had 



422 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

brought about reductions in values enough to account for 
the overthrow of any financial enterprise. The laxity of 
morals occasioned by the war, and the carelessness which 
resulted from exceptional prosperity, produced a tendency to 
fraud which was perhaps without parallel in commercial and 
political history. Throughout this tremendous test the 
national banks have maintained their credit to a remarkable 
degree. 

If there is a tax on national banks it is not easy to under- 
stand the principles upon which it is founded. These banks 
are supplied by the government with notes to which the 
attributes of currency are legally attached. It is true that 
the banks give security for these notes ; but the revenue 
from the bonds which are deposited as security is received 
by the banks and therefore they suffer no loss by giving this 
security, and they derive a benefit by the use of circulating 
notes to the extent of the interest which they receive for 
their use. The tax upon them ought, therefore, to be nearly 
equivalent to the ordinary rate of interest. The notes of 
the national banks put out of circulation about an equal 
amount of the United States legal tender notes, upon the 
issue of which the government has the benefit of the interest 
on their value ; and unless the national banks pay an 
equivalent, the government loses by the transaction. 

But while the government taxes the circulation of the 
banks one per cent per annum only, they place a tax on 
their deposits of one half per cent, and they also tax their 
capital stock one half per cent, except such portion of it as 
is invested in United States bonds as security for the circu- 
lation. The effect of this arrangement of taxation is to give 
the banks an excessive profit on the issue of notes, which 
they are, therefore, unduly tempted to force into circulation, 
while it deprives them of their legitimate profit on deposits. 
The banks are, therefore, the less disposed to receive 
deposits, and, in consequence, they pay to depositors less 
interest than they would otherwise pay. In short, the circu- 



ORIGIN OF THE SYSTEM. 423 

lation of notes is unduly stimulated and the deposits are 
checked. 

The comptroller of the currency reports that the losses 
from the state and savings banks of the country for one year, 
that of 1879, 3.re known to have been greater than the total 
loss resulting from all the failures which have occurred of 
national banking associations since their establishment. The 
government has had large amounts on deposits continually 
with a great number of national banks throughout the coun- 
try, for its convenience in making disbursements, but has 
suffered no loss during the past twelve years. Upon the 
circulating notes of the national banks there has been no loss 
whatever. 

It will be seen from this statement that the national bank 
system of the United States compares favorably not only 
with that of other countries, but shows to great advantage 
when compared with banks in this country. A little more 
than twenty years ago banking in America was gloriously 
free ; all kinds of banks were in existence, each state did 
that which was right in its own eyes. In establishing the 
national banks, and giving legal circulation to their notes, 
the Federal government was unable to control or supersede 
the operations of other banks which were often established 
by charters granted by the different state governments. The 
government did, however, put a stop to the issue of bank 
notes by these banks, by imposing a tax of ten per cent upon 
the issue of all notes other than the notes of national banks. 

This valuable system of banking had its origin with a law 
in the state of New York, which required the banks in the 
state to deposit bonds to an amount greater than the amount 
of bills issued, with the state treasurer; Secretary Chase, 
then in the Cabinet, induced Congress to provide a like law 
for the country. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

PAPER MONEY. 

PAPER money has both its advantage, and its disadvan- 
tage. There are principally two things which constitute 
the desirability of paper money : economy and convenience. 

The advantage of economy is a great one. The material 
used for paper money is of much less value than the material 
in a specie circulation. A bill worth one thousand ounces of 
silver may not have cost more than two cents. The cost 
of paper, plates and printing constitute the cost of a piece of 
paper money. The cost of a piece of silver represents the 
labor and cost of mining, which may be heavy. Now, in just 
so far as a paper circulation accomplishes the same result as 
specie, and accomplishes it at a less cost, the community is 
the gainer in using paper money. The wear and tear of 
paper money, as well as the original cost, is less expensive 
than that of silver and gold. Were silver and gold trans- 
ported and in actual use as paper money now is, the friction 
would reduce the weight so rapidly, that new issues would be 
a constant necessity. 

Paper money is more economical ; hence, as its introduc- 
tion renders a considerable part of the specie formerly 
employed useless, it may be exchanged for other capital. 
Specie is, in itself, incapable of production. If a part of it 
will answer the purposes of exchange, all the remainder may 
be exchanged for productive capital. Hence the gain, as 
has been shown in the preceding section, is equal to the 
amount of this difference employed in productive, and the 
same amount employed in unproductive, capital. If five 
millions can be without injury dispensed with, the benefit is 
equal to the difference between five millions in productive 
and five millions in unproductive capital. 

424 



DISADVANTAGES OF PAPER MONEY. 425 

Paper money has a great convenience over specie. It is 
much more easily transported. To travelers and men in the 
ordinary affairs of life, this is a matter of considerable conse- 
quence. Specie is heavy and burdensome. Any amount of 
paper money which a man needs may be comprised in as 
small a bulk as he chooses. When large transfers of money 
are to be made between distant places, the additional 
convenience and security are still more evident. 

It is far safer to carry paper money than specie. It is 
less liable to robbery. As we can render its bulk whatever 
we please, it can be more readily concealed, if we doubt the 
honesty of our associates. Specie is heavy, bulky and noisy, 
and hence its presence is unavoidably discovered. Paper 
money, if stolen, is more easily identified, and hence more 
easily recovered. A man, by noting the number and marks 
of a bank bill, may safely swear to its identity; but, inas- 
much as coin is intentionally alike, this would be impossible 
in the case of specie. 

Paper money has three disadvantages which specie has 
not, viz : its liability to forgery, to fraud and to fluctuation. 
Paper money will always be liable to forgery. The risk, in 
this respect, from the use of bank paper, is considerable. 
The security from signatures is small, since good penmen, 
by practice, can easily learn to imitate any signature. The 
principal security arises from the quality of the engraving 
and of the paper. But, as any one who can engrave suffi- 
ciently well can so engrave a false bill that no ordinary 
examiner can distinguish it from a true one, every man is 
liable to be imposed upon, and to suffer a total loss to the 
exact amount of the imposition. It is true that coin is also 
liable to be falsified, but the process is much more difficult 
and expensive than that of engraving. False coin, being 
liable to detection from its color, weight and sonorousness, 
is more readily detected. Inasmuch, therefore, as the liability 
to counterfeiting is greater in paper money than in specie, this 
difference is to be set down in the list of the disadvantages 
with which it is chargeable. 



426 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

On this account, banks which issue paper money are 
under obligations to take every precaution to render their 
bills as little liable to be counterfeited as possible. The 
greatest security, as we have remarked, is in the excellence 
of the engraving, and in the peculiarity of the paper. Hence 
they should employ, for the engraving of their bills, none 
but the best artists ; and thus employ talent which would 
be under no temptation to engage in counterfeiting. They 
should never use plates which have been so much worn as 
to render the impression coarse, indistinct, and easily imi- 
tated. A bank which, to save expense, uses a worn-out 
plate, enriches itself at the expense of the public. 

Banks may fraudulently commence issues when only a 
part, or when not even any part, of the capital has been paid 
in. If only a part of the capital be paid in, the public, 
instead of having a guarantee equal to the whole amount of 
its capital, over and above the notes of individuals held by 
the bank, has a guarantee equal only to the amount paid in. 
If the capital of a bank be one hundred thousand dollars, 
and only ten thousand dollars be paid in, and the bank issue 
one hundred and fifty thousand in bills, it holds only a 
guarantee of ten thousand dollars, to insure the payment of 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars by the debtors of the 
.bank. Upon the least commercial pressure, or in case of 
loss by accident or robbery, such a bank must fail, and the 
holders of the bills must suffer a loss equal to the deficiency 
by the failure of the debtors of the bank, the costs of closing 
its concerns, and the loss of interest until its bills have been 
paid. 

Again, suppose that none of the capital stock had been 
paid in, but that the stockholders simply gave their notes 
for their shares. The security would then be precisely equal 
to the average goodness of the notes of individuals received 
by the bank in exchange for its bills. It would have no 
capital on hand to redeem these bills, and on the least press- 
ure for specie payments it must fail. The notes of individ- 
uals in a time of scarcity of money would be worth much 



FAILURE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA BANK. 427 

less than par, and as the stockholders would pay for their 
notes which they gave for shares by surrendering up the 
shares for which they gave them, the whole loss would fall 
on the holders of the bills. 

Again, suppose that, as in the last case, no stock were 
paid in ; that the stockholders were the directors themselves, 
and that they accommodated themselves with money with- 
out ever requiring notes of each other. Here there would 
be no security whatever, either in bank capital or in the 
notes of individuals. In such case, the bank must speedily 
stop payment and the whole loss of its issues would fall 
upon the holders of its bills. This, as well as the last case, 
is nothing more than a fraudulent arrangement for picking 
the pockets of the public on an extensive scale. It is noth- 
ing more nor less than downright swindling, and should 
expose a man to the same punishment as house breaking. 

Nor is this danger merely imaginary. The amount lost 
by the public from the failure of banks is actually enormous. 
The most able and competent authority on this subject says 
that between January, 1811, and July, 1 830, one hundred 
and sixty-five banks failed. The capital of one hundred and 
twenty-nine of them amounted to more than twenty-four 
millions of dollars, stated as having been paid in. The fail- 
ures were more than one fifth of the whole. About the year 
1840, the "United States Bank of Pennsylvania" failed, and 
its shares of the par value of one hundred dollars, and which 
cost the holders in many cases one hundred and twenty 
dollars, sold at the nominal price of five or six dollars. Bills 
of the bank sold at sixty cents on the dollar. Thus the whole 
capital of this institution, thirty-five million dollars, van- 
ished in three years. And this mismanagement or fraud was 
committed by men who were celebrated as models of finance, 
ability and disinterested patriotism, and in a city proud of 
its mercantile faith. 

Fluctuation is the most dangerous thing that can affect 
money. The reason is obvious. He who contracted debts 
when money bore one ratio to products, would pay them 



428 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

when it bore another ratio ; and hence, though he might 
pay the same nominal amount, yet he might pay twice as 
much in value as he had promised. So, also, he who had 
loaned money while it bore one ratio, and received his pay- 
ments while it was at another, though he might receive the 
same nominal amount, might not receive half the amount in 
value which he loaned. And hence, all civilized communities 
have denied to governments the right of altering or in any 
manner interfering with the value of coin ; for the reason 
that this cannot be affected without causing a variation in 
the value of money, and thus interfering with private 
contracts. Were this allowable, is evidence that credit must 
be at an end ; because, whatever a contract might mean 
to-day, no one could possibly predict what it would mean 
to-morrow. Hence all fluctuation in the value of any 
substance, renders it, by the amount of this fluctuation, unfit 
for the purposes of a circulating medium. If gold and silver 
were as fluctuating in value as cotton or wheat, they would, 
their bulk only excepted, be as unfit for the purposes of 
money, as these substances themselves. 

The great disadvantage of paper money is that it is 
exposed to sudden and heavy fluctuations in value. In 
order to accomplish a given amount of exchange it is neces- 
sary to have a certain amount of circulating value. If, 
to accomplish the exchanges of a community at a given 
time, one thousand ounces of silver, equal to one thousand 
bushels of wheat, are necessary, and twice this quantity be 
introduced, the value will remain the same, though the 
quantity varies ; and the result will be, that the price of 
money, in relation to other products, will fall one half; that 
is, if we gave five dollars for a hat before, we shall give ten 
dollars now and for other things in proportion. And if half 
the quantity were removed, the reverse would be the case : 
that is, the price of money would be doubled ; if we gave five 
dollars for a hat before, we should give two dollars and fifty 
cents for it now ; and so of all things. 

If we bear this in mind we shall easily see the nature of 



THE FLUCTUATION OF PAPER MONEY. 429 

the fluctuations to which paper money is Hable. Metallic 
money, or specie, has a natural price, which is not liable to 
any fluctuation within short periods. 

The fluctuation of paper money may arise, on the part of 
the bank, innocently, or otherwise ; from want of skill and 
forethought, or from want of integrity. Suppose that, at a 
given period, the circulating medium in a community is 
properly proportioned to the necessities of exchange, and 
that this medium, through paper, is perfectly sound that is, 
that there exists, in all the banks, sufficient specie to pay all 
debts of the bank, on demand, in the precious metals. Let 
now, from some cause, the productiveness of labor be greatly 
increased, so that a much larger amount of annual products 
is brought into the market. If the amount of money remain 
the same, while the amount of products is increased, the 
price of money will rise ; that is, every thing will be cheap. 
As soon as products become cheap, every one is anxious to 
buy. Merchants will be desirous to borrow money, with 
which to buy, because, when products are cheap, it may be 
reasonably expected that the price will rise ; and, if the rise 
in price be greater than the interest paid for money, the 
purchaser may reasonably hope to be able to repay what he 
borrowed, with interest, and yet realize a handsome profit. 
Besides, when an article is low in any country, then is the 
time to export it with advantage ; and this prospect of 
increased advantage will induce men to borrow, in order to 
export, in the expectation that the usual profit will enable 
them to realize far more than the interest they have paid for 
borrowed capital. In such a season, every one is desirous of 
borrowing, and banks can most profitably employ their 
capital. They are called upon to loan, to the utmost extent 
of their power, both by their own interest and by the 
universal wish of the public. 

Now, in such a state of things, it is not to be supposed 
that the directors of the banks are endowed with greater 
prudence than other men, or that they are not as likely to 
be influenced by the hope of large dividends. The example 



430 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of one stimulates the others. The risk that one institution 
runs another will be willing to run. A bank will scarcely be 
willing to make a dividend of six per cent while its neighbor 
is making eight. And when disconnected banks, all over a 
nation, are animated by these principles, it is evident that a 
very large amount of loans must be effected ; that is, a very 
large amount of paper money must be issued. For the same 
reason, at such a time, a great number of additional banks 
will be incorporated, and all will be watched over with less 
than usual vigilance. But just so fast as, beyond the neces- 
sary amount, the quantity is increased, the value of each 
portion of it diminishes, and thus prices rise ; that is, money 
becomes abundant, and a dollar will purchase no more than 
it would in a time of scarcity. Thus the amount of circulat- 
ing medium becomes too great for the amount of exchanges, 
and money is cheaper than any other article in the market. 
But we have before seen that the cheapest article in the 
market will always be exported. As this is now money, 
money will be exported. But as the bills are redeemable in 
specie, specie is worth no more than bank bills; and as the 
bills are worth nothing abroad, the whole exportation will 
be in coin. In a short time, a large portion of it has left the 
country. The banks then find themselves liable to pay in 
specie, a vastly greater amount than they were liable to pay, 
a month or two since, and they find that they have much 
less specie wherewith to pay it ; and the demand for specie 
still continues. They are, of course, in danger of stopping 
payment, and their only means of safety is in diminishing 
their loans ; that is, loaning no more, and requiring payment 
of those who owe them. Hence those who had borrowed 
with the hope of paying by means of their sales, are called 
upon to pay, before these sales are effected, and as the banks 
refuse to loan, very few are disposed to buy. Thus, the 
debtors of the bank are required to pay their debts sooner 
than they expected, and the means of making those pay- 
ments are curtailed. The money goes back into the bank, 
and does not come out of it. Thus, with every day, the 



EFFECT OF BANK SUSPENSIONS. 43 1 

quantity of the circulating medium is diminished. The 
scarcity of money increases. The price of goods falls, as 
men will sell for lower and lower prices rather than hold 
their wares, and distress is a sure result. 

The method which has been sometimes resorted to, when 
banks have either viciously or innocently become unable 
to pay their bills, is to suspend specie payments, and then 
prevail upon the state legislatures to pass laws exempting 
them from the consequences of their failure. This expedient 
has been resorted to, for the second time within two years, 
by the greater part of the banks in the United States. 
Although excuses may be rendered for such a course, under 
a universal and unexpected calamity, there can be no doubt 
that the bank suspensions must work the direst mischief to 
the community. The following considerations are sufficient 
to show the nature and tendencies of such a measure. 

The obligations of a bank are as binding as those of an 
individual. There is no reason why it should be exonerated 
from them more than an individual. If a merchant fail to 
pay his note at the bank, his credit is dishonored and he is 
expected to pay interest from the time of his failure. There 
can be no reason why a bank should not abide by the rule 
which it enforces upon others. 

The only circumstance which gives any value to the bills 
of a bank, is the assurance that they will be paid in specie. 
But if the bank is allowed, at will, to absolve itself from this 
obligation, what is this assurance worth. This very power 
conceded to banks, would render a paper currency worthless. 

The only restriction upon unlimited issues of paper money, 
is the obligation imposed upon banks to redeem their bills at 
sight in specie. So long as this is enforced, the currency 
could not readily become injuriously expanded. If it be not 
enforced, or if the bank may be easily sheltered from the 
results of its imprudence, a paper currency may be expanded 
inimitably. In this manner, as in the case of the continental 
money, the circulating medium may be rendered good for 
nothing. 



432 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The fluctuation of paper money, arising either from fraud 
or unskillfuhiess, makes the bank reprehensible. If by fraud 
the management of a bank produces a fluctuation of money 
until false values terminate in distress, the act is criminal, 
and no measure of punishment could well be too severe for 
such intentional wrong. If the fluctuation be produced 
merely by incompetency, while the charge of criminality 
could hardly be made, yet it may be remarked that a set of 
men finding themselves unskilled in banking are dishonest 
if they persist in making the public suffer the direful 
consequences of their unskillfulness. 

There is a defense to be made for banks which in times 
of peril carefully guard their funds. In a time of scarcity, 
banks are sadly abused because they will not loan more 
money. A bank, if it be honest and mean to pay its debts, 
has its limit, which it cannot safely pass, as truly as an indi- 
vidual. When it has arrived at this limit its loans must 
cease. A merchant who has involved himself in large 
transactions, expecting that he could borrow as much as he 
chose, is now disappointed because his expectations are not 
realized. But what reason has he to complain ? The bank 
never promised to lend him when it had nothing to lend, 
nor to ruin itself for the sake of saving him from the conse- 
quences of his own headlong improvidence, especially when, 
by doing this, it must involve not only itself but him also in 
ruin. The bank was no party to his engagements; it derives 
no benefit from them, and it is under no obligation to enable 
him to fulfill them. The only remedy for these evils mani- 
festly is for both parties to be willing to grow rich more 
slowly, and thus to assume less formidable risks. When a 
whole community has run into transactions beyond its 
means, and has become embarrassed, there is very little 
gained by the abuse of banks and of bank directors. 

In our currency there is but one element, the metallic, 
that is self regulating. The paper depends upon this and is 
wholly artificial, and has no security save that which is given 
it by wise and firm laws. Uniformity and steadiness in the 



PAPER MONEY DEPENDENT ON COIN. 433 

regulating law can alone impart these qualities to the 
currency, and make it for a moment worthy of the adoption 
of a civilized and reflective people. Most of its evils may be 
overcome, most of its advantages may be gained ; but not 
without careful theory and broad experience, combined in a 
steadily and widely applied law. Nothing could be surer to 
precipitate a people into every evil of which a currency may 
be the prolific source, than to leave every partial community 
enfolded in a broader community, to try its own experi- 
ments and follow out its own theories. Nothing of consist- 
ency and universality can be so gained. Every experiment 
conflicts with and embarrasses every other, and nothing can 
be a better proof of our unbounded strength than the success 
with which our emphatically mixed currency has met, or, 
rather, than the limited difiiculties in which it has succeeded 
in involving us ; we have tripped without falling. 

The more the paper money is made to feel its dependence 
upon the metallic currency the safer will be the condition of 
the exchange. Paper money can have but little self- 
regulating power. It is the creation of human law, and 
must share its defects and mistakes. It cannot, indeed, be 
issued in unlimited amounts, as business cannot take it up 
in every amount ; but it can be issued and forced into circu- 
lation in very excessive and injurious amounts. Paper can 
circulate without any specie basis, but only by virtue of the 
most rigorous restriction ; and the instant this restriction is 
removed, it flashes into smoke with all the destructive force 
of powder. With a specie basis it is less volatile ; but what 
ratio this basis shall bear to the issues rests solely on regula- 
tion and very easily escapes all regulation. If left to private 
bankers, under the regulations of a general or specific law, 
the interests of these bankers are in direct conflict with the 
restrictions of the law ; and this artificial restraint, perhaps 
judicious, perhaps injudicious, fails in its application. Indi- 
vidual cunning, ever awake, is too much for the slumbering 
justice of law. If the government takes this function of 
issue to itself, the diffiiculty is by no means removed'; the 
38 



434 I'HE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

temptation is then transferred from individuals to tlie state, 
and in this conflict between what is deemed an immediate 
and certain and an uncertain and future good, the latter is 
not always more successful than the former. A large insti- 
tution like the Bank of England, or the United States 
national bank system, in the hands of individuals, but under 
the immediate inspection of the government, by the balance 
of interests, promises and gives the greatest security to any 
regulations which may be adopted. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

BANK NOTES AND GREENBACKS. 

THE business of issuing bank notes or bills is a peculiarly 
profitable enterprise for banks, for a bank bill bears no 
interest ; it is liable to be destroyed by fire or water ; it is 
likely to remain out for a considerable period — indeed, issue 
banks often take pains to cause their bills to be circulated at 
a great distance from the bank, in order to keep them out 
the longer; and finally, as the bank bill becomes a medium 
of exchange, the people are in a manner compelled to accept 
it. But if a bank fails, the laborers for wages, the non-capi- 
talists, are sure to suffer most of the loss which occurs from 
the depreciation of the bills. A bank note or bill has there- 
fore some of the features of a forced loan by the bank from 
the public. 

In the United States we have been so long accustomed 
to see the issue of bills made the most conspicuous business 
of a bank, that in the common apprehension a bank is synon- 
ymous with a paper-mill, a machine to create shin-plasters, 
and to suspend specie payments whenever, by granting 
unwise credit and imprudent loans, it has helped to create a 
commercial revulsion. 

It is seriously thought by some that the issue of notes is 
not necessary, and hardly a legitimate part of the banking 
business ; that the most solid and also the most profitable 
banks in the world do not issue notes at all, and that bank 
notes, though a convenience, are not absolutely necessary to 
any people. California, for instance, had in 1873 a number 
of remarkably solid, useful and profitable banks, but it had 
only two banks of issue, and as it might have had many 
more, their absence is a proof that they were not needed. 

A bank note is not money. On the contrary, it is only a 

435 



43^ THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

promise to pay money. It is one of several kinds of promises 
to pay, and differs from the others mainly in these particu- 
lars: that it bears no interest, and that the holder has no 
security in his own hands. 

A twenty-dollar gold piece is of itself that much in value. 
Its value is no more than a smooth piece of gold without 
any stamp weighing the same amount. The value is inhe- 
rent in the gold. But a bank note for twenty dollars is only 
a certificate that a bank somewhere promises to pay you 
twenty dollars. If we wish to carry about with us one hun- 
dred dollars, it would obviously be more convenient to carry- 
bank notes to that amount than money; for the paper bills 
being lighter than coin are more easily carried and concealed. 
And this convenience of carriage and concealment, with 
economy, are the chief excuses for the existence of bank bills. 

When a bank issues notes or bills, its object is to gain 
money by borrowing without interest of the general public. 
If it issues one hundred thousand dollars in bills, that implies 
that it holds one hundred thousand dollars in money in its 
vaults, or till ready to redeem these bills. In practice, how- 
ever, banks do not keep so much money idle; they keep on 
hand only such a smaller sum as general experience has 
shown to be usually sufficient for redemption. But experi- 
ence has also shown that all bankers are not prudent or wise ; 
and hence the government now rightly requires that a bank, 
before it issues bills or notes, shall deposit a sum in property 
at all times readily convertible into coin, which shall be held 
for the redemption of the bills. United States bonds, which 
are the best security we have, and most readily convertible 
into money, are used for this purpose. 

With the management of banks which confine themselves 
to the business of receiving deposits and making loans, the 
government has no right to interfere, any more than it does 
with the business of a merchant, farmer or shopkeeper. 

Banks of issue, however, stand in a different category. 
They exercise a power over the public so great and so liable 
to abuse, in the privilege granted them to issue non-interest- 



FOLLY OF THE CRY AGAINST NATIONAL BANKS. 437 

bearing notes, without security in the holders' hands, things 
which take the place of money, that the people have a right 
to demand that such issues shall be made only under rigid 
checks. 

It is proper, therefore, that the government shall require 
the deposit of United States bonds to an amount greater 
than the amount of bills issued. Should the bank fail, these 
bonds would be sold by the government, and out of the 
proceeds the bill-holders would be paid first. Under this, 
which is called the national banking system, the bill-holders 
are secure against loss by failure of the bank, and there is no 
doubt that this system is more secure and of greater public 
convenience than any system of state banks. 

Here is manifest the ignorance of those who raise a hue 
and cry against national banks as monopolies, making huge 
profits out of the people. That this is the rankest of follies 
will be plain if we remember that a bank note is used only as 
a convenience by the people ; and that, under proper regula- 
tions promptly enforced, banks of issue are a real and impor- 
tant convenience ; while banks of deposit and credit are of the 
greatest and most positive advantage to the mass of people, 
both capitalists and laborers. Just as unwise is the cry 
against banks, and for the reason of increasing greenbacks. 

A greenback is a non-interest-bearing promise to pay 
money, issued by the government, and for whose redemption 
the holder has no security in his own hands. It is, so far, 
precisely like a bank note ; but it has one feature which 
makes it differ from a common bank note : you can not sue 
the issuer of the note — the government, namely — that has 
used its power to make it a legal tender. 

If a banker issues one hundred thousand dollars in bills, 
that is evidence that he is the owner of one hundred thousand 
dollars in money or other property, which- — or, more correctly, 
one hundred and ten thousand dollars — he has deposited in 
the treasury as security that he will redeem his notes on 
demand. And this is what the government does in issuing 
greenbacks. It issues promises to pay ; and these promises 



438 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

are evidence that it has, in the confidence of the people, the 
power to pay. 

That the greenback is simply a certificate that the govern- 
ment owes so much, is shown by the reflection that in order 
to call in and redeem the greenbacks the government would 
have to first raise money by taxes, or by the sale of bonds. 

And we can see from this the deception resting in the 
minds of those who cry for more greenbacks. In a time of 
war, when the expenditures of the government enormously 
exceeded the largest sum it could raise from taxes, it was 
authorized to borrow money. It borrowed many hundreds 
of millions, upon bonds, or obligations promising to repay 
the lenders at a certain time, with interest at a stipulated 
rate. This was perfectly legitimate and honest. But the 
government also chose to borrow money by a loan from its 
citizens, for which it gave, not interest-bearing bonds, but 
notes promising to pay, but neither stipulating time of 
repayment nor granting interest for the use of the money. 
Such a note made by an individual would be void ; made by 
the government, it was tolerated, on the express ground that 
the government needed vast sums for its current expendi- 
tures, and must get money where and in whatever way it 
could. 

But circumstances have changed. The taxes now equal 
the expenditures, and there is an annual surplus even. How 
then can we have more greenbacks? On what excuse, in 
what way, for what purpose, can the government borrow 
money? What shall it do with the money for which it is to 
issue more greenbacks ? The people in favor of more green- 
backs seem to have perceived this dilemma, and to meet it 
they have begun to urge a great system of public works — 
canals, railroads and other costly improvements. But if we 
are to run in debt for these, surely it is better to do so 
honestly, by selling our bonds, than dishonestly, by increas- 
ing the amount of a forced loan which ought long ago to 
have been paid out of the surplus revenue, instead of redeem- 
ing bonds not yet due. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 

THE growing conviction that the nations of the earth 
are of one blood ; that this family of nations have 
common and mutual interests ; that these common interests 
can best be served by a universal commerce: this has 
developed international trade. Political economy finds here 
a broad field in which can be operated industrial principles 
for the highest welfare of mankind. 

The discoveries of science and the activity of invention 
have astonished the whole world by the new facilities 
furnished to give extension and freedom to the mutual inter- 
course and trade of nations. All civilized people hail with 
joy the beneficent changes which have come to each country 
and to the world by the introduction of steam to give speed 
and certainty to navigation, of the locomotive and rail-car to 
shorten distance as measured by time, and of the electric 
telegraph which annihilates time and distance, and permits 
contracts and all commercial negotiations to be adjusted to 
present facts in all parts of the world. The common sense 
of men expressed by their instinctive prompt adoption of 
these inventions, pronounces universal freedom of trade a 
common blessing. In accord with this principle, the 
civilization of the world is advancing with rapid strides. 

Until a comparatively recent period there was nothing 
which could properly be called international trade. We do, 
indeed, read in history, as far back as its records go, of over- 
land merchantmen, like the caravan of Ishmaelites to whom 
Joseph was sold ; of cities like Tyre and Carthage, and some 
of the Greek cities, which grew rich and great by a sort of 
world-wide commerce ; and in the mediaeval time of the 
Italian cities, Venice, Genoa, and others, whose trade swept 

439 



440 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

the seas, and brought in to individual merchants and to the 
coffers of the state wealth untold. But those merchant 
caravans and fleets of commerce were mere go-betweens for 
people who stood aloof, in antagonism toward each other. 
These traders went everywhere, buying whatever they could 
at the cheapest, and selling what they could at the dearest, 
and took the chief advantage to themselves. They grew 
rich out of their contact with all, but they awakened no 
common interest between the different peoples they visited. 
They left only the incidental benefit of furnishing each with 
some things they did want, and carrying away some things 
they did not want. That trade fostered no international 
good will, and gave rise to no free international intercourse. 

False doctrines then prevailed, as, that '' Nations are 
natural enemies to each other;" *' In trade, one nation can 
gain only what another nation has lost ; " "A nation's wealth 
is increased only as money is brought in and held fast ; " 
" Better to give two dollars which remain in the country for 
a commodity than only one dollar which goes out of the 
country." These false doctrines led to the most harrassing 
restrictions on all commercial intercourse. Different trades 
were organized as rival guilds, each guarding carefully its 
own secrets, and eager to secure special privileges. Tolls 
were collected at every city's gates on all goods brought in. 
Each nation sought to build up its own industry by breaking 
down that of others. Strange and absurd laws were enacted, 
defining what things the people should and what they should 
not consume, and resisting or distorting all the natural laws 
of trade. 

Happily other and better views have now, in great 
measure, supplanted the old false doctrines, and the absurd 
regulations have for the most part disappeared. 

The two main theories of political economy, relative to 
international trade now remaining, and both of which have 
strong advocates, are what is known as protective tariff and 
free trade. 

The theory of protection is, that in order to promote 



THE CONDUCT OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 441 

home industry, the importation of certain articles from 
countries where they can be produced cheaper than at home 
should be prohibited or restricted by duties. 

The theory of free trade is, that a nation's industries 
are best promoted by maintaining the utmost freedom in 
the exchange of all commodities at home and with other 
countries. 

These two theories have been in conflict through all our 
history as a nation. The constitution of 1787 put itself on 
the side of at least a mild protection, by determining that 
congress should have power to "levy and collect duties." 
In the first custom law passed, that of July 4, 1789, it was 
decided to impose duties for the payment of the public debt 
and the encouragement and protection of manufacturers. 
This was the beginning of the protective policy. The idea 
of the constitution was to impose duties for the purpose of 
driving many to pay the debt ; the idea of this first tariff 
law included, in addition to this, protection for home prod- 
ucts. In each of the years 18 16, 1824 and 1827 the tariff 
was raised. The consequence of these new custom laws 
was, that on the coast, and particularly on the Canadian 
border, an immense contraband trade sprang up, and thus 
honest merchants suffered to benefit a few smugglers and 
manufacturers. At last South Carolina lost all patience, 
and in December, 1832, adopted the bold resolution to 
declare the custom laws of the country null and void, and 
renounced all obedience to them. This resolution, which 
foretold a dissolution of a great and happy Union, and 
indeed partially carried it into effect, naturally created the 
greatest excitement. This spirit of opposition was carried 
throughout the country; and so there came to be formed 
two opposite theories of international trade. 

The argument for a protective tariff is based on the propo- 
sition that it is necessary in order to develop the industries 
of the country. This was more especially the case in the 
infancy of this country. The doctrine of home protection 
was introduced from the practice of England in her deahng 



442 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

with the colonies. That country prohibited the establish- 
ment of all kinds of manufactures, and imposed a heavy duty 
on tea and fabrics which were brought to this country in 
English vessels to be bartered away by English trade. At 
the close of the war our whole system of life grew and 
developed in antagonism to English life. To encourage 
home manufacture, and the consumption of home manufact- 
ures, duties were imposed on articles imported from other 
countries. If it was found that guns could be manufactured 
in England twenty per cent cheaper than in the United 
States, and as a consequence would sell cheaper in this 
country than the home article, the remedy clearly lay in 
imposing a duty of twenty per cent on the English gun as it 
was brought in port. Then the American manufacturer 
could compete with the English, and the home article would 
be bought. 

Another advantage of a protective duty is that it allows 
free competition at home, uninfluenced with foreign compe- 
tition. The Canadian farmer cannot take his horses and 
cattle to New York to compete with the American farmer 
without first paying a duty. This delivers American industry 
from the competition of foreign trade. 

The whole later genius of American commerce is, how- 
ever, against at least a high tarifT. A perfectly free trade, a 
complete annihilation of duties is, in the United States as in 
other countries, impossible. This income cannot be dis- 
pensed with, neither can its place be supplied by an excise or 
by direct taxation. If, on the other hand, importation is 
prohibited or rendered impossible by excessively high duties, 
this equally results in a destruction of all revenue. Although 
individuals of either party may have pushed their views to 
one or the other of these extremes, yet the friends of free 
trade in general are as far from meaning by its adoption to 
abolish all duties, as the advocates of a high tariff are from 
desiring to put a total stop to importation. But between 
these extremes there are many intermediate points on which 
men can unite and come to an understanding. That in 



HIGH TARIFF HURTFUL. 443 

drawing up tariffs respect should be had to the proceedings 
of other countries, is natural and proper; but it is by no 
means advisable or advantageous to imitate those foreign 
measures or even go beyond them. Care must be taken 
especially not to be seduced by uncertain statistical enu- 
merations, brief experiments, and partial conclusions, into 
sweeping and erroneous measures. 

The endeavor to attain complete commercial independ- 
ence is both foolish and impious ; commerce binds together 
countries and nations for their mutual advantage, and none 
but an unpractical philosopher like Fichte could regard a 
wholly exclusive commercial state as the triumph of human 
development. The entire independence of countries with 
respect to each other destroys all foreign trade ; the condition 
of China for centuries is proof of this. An American historian 
observes, far more correctly than the German philosopher: 
" Mutual intercourse creates mutual dependence, mutual 
gain, and mutual friendship." 

Protective duties prohibit or render difficult the introduc- 
tion of articles because they are good and cheap, and close 
the market of the world to favor that of monopolists. 

A people who do not raise the raw materials, but are 
forced to buy them, cannot manufacture to advantage, if 
their sales are confined to the home market ; neither can a 
people that raises far more raw produce than it can use or 
work up, seclude itself from other nations by excessive 
protecting duties. If, in the United States, capital is less 
abundant and wages higher than in England, still other things 
are nearer at hand and cheaper, as the raw produce of the 
country ; and we have found that manufactures have flour- 
ished most when duties were low. 

The cheaper a man can supply one want, the more he has 
left for satisfying the rest; and natural right and natural 
prudence are not to be violated, to satisfy the selfishness of 
a few who wish to sell dear. He who cannot carry on a 
business with free competition, should let it alone; the 
contrary principle is, in fact, destructive of trade, it sets the 



444 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

costly and artificial above the natural, and takes much from 
many in order to bolster up what is unsuitable in itself. All 
trade is founded on buying where the articles are cheap and 
abundant,; the contrary principle leads to rearing vines in 
hot-houses, and making sugar out of substances that contain 
but little of the saccharine matter. 

This was shown when a high duty was laid on foreign 
lumber and timber, with the result of breaking up an 
important trade in finished lumber which our merchants had 
established with Australia and the West Indies, but which 
was driven to Canada by the tariff which made lumber dear 
here ; making all houses dearer and house rents higher for the 
laboring men and their families ; and causing the needless 
destruction of our own forests, which we ought much rather 
to have preserved with great care so long as our neighbors 
would sell us theirs. 

Extreme measures are always evil. Truth and justice, 
sound politics and wisdom, are always to be found in the 
middle path, the juste milieu. All ultraism is destructive, 
and is even attended with injurious consequences. We must 
reject as well the doctrine of extreme free trade, as that of 
excessive duties. A tariff with moderate rates and carefully 
prepared, is useful for the country. If the proceeds of the 
customs add to the surplus revenue, the duties must be 
reduced, even at the hazard of injuring some branches of 
manufacturing industry. The prosperity of the whole coun- 
try is of more consequence than that of any one industry. 

Until within the last half century the protective policy has 
ruled the industry and trade of the world, with only here and 
there an exception, like Holland in her best days. Low 
tariff has had scarcely a chance to try its experiment. Its 
principles are, however, illustrated and sustained in the hun- 
dred years' history of our nation's independent life. The 
states of our republic, in their extent of territory, their divers- 
ity of resources, the varied races and endowments of their 
people, and their distinctive interests, constitute a world by 
themselves. Fortunately our constitution forever forbids 



SAFETY OF LOW TARIFF. 445 

the protective policy to restrict their trade with each other. 
Here is a broad arena for the experiment of low tariff, or 
even free trade. 

By trade each nation avails itself of the advantages and 
resources of the whole earth, and enters in for a share of the 
blessings bestowed on every soil, clime and people. It feels 
also the stimulus of every form of industry; not only rival 
industries, but that which, crowding its markets with new 
utilities, new enjoyments, invites anS^ draws out its purchas- 
ing power. Commerce keeps in lively motion all the wheels 
of industry, and supplies both the motives and means to a 
large share of production. That the greatest commercial, 
social and moral advantages be secured from a trade with 
the whole world, it is necessary that commerce be obstructed 
as little as possible. 

The most magnificent and conclusive example of the 
benefits of unobstructed commerce is afforded by our own 
country. The constitution of the United States provides 
carefully for the most entire and unobstructed freedom in 
the interchange of products over the greater and most 
fertile part of the American continent, and among thirty- 
seven different political communities; and no one doubts 
that it is to this absolute freedom of exchange, guarded with 
the utmost jealousy against every exaction and interference, 
that we owe our wonderful advance in wealth, as well as in 
the ingenuity and intelligence of our people. 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 

TWO of the most emphatic propositions of political econ- 
omy are: First, any traffic which is harmful to the 
welfare of a majority of the people of a community ought 
to have restrictive or prohibitive legislation ; second, any 
industrial enterprise which cripples the industrial forces of a 
country needs the same restrictive or prohibitive legislation. 

These propositions themselves scarcely need discussion. 
Modern civilization has implicit faith in majorities. The 
right of the majority to control all measures of the people's 
choice is a doctrine no longer questioned. In our national 
life we have thoroughly preached this principle into our 
political and industrial systems ; it is the gospel of right by 
which we decide all great matters, and to its standard we 
relegate all issues for approval or rejection. This being so 
unquestionably settled in our convictions, the rule is like- 
wise settled that the selfish interest of the minority has no 
right to infringe on the welfare of the majority. Hence the 
proposition that any traffic which is harmful to the majority 
ought to be suppressed. 

The logic of the second proposition is just as conclusive. 
The two main classes of the industrial forces are those of 
capital and those of labor. Any trade introduced in a com- 
munity which should so cripple the powers of capital, or 
those of labor, or of both, as to weaken their efficiency as 
productive forces, should receive the most restrictive laws 
that could be passed. No man, or party of men, has any 
right to destroy the industrial forces of a community. For 
them to do it, is criminal ; for any community to allow them 
to do it, is suicidal. Any traffic that will make a man so 
inefficient as to make his labor incapable of furnishing his 

446 



MAGNITUDE OF THE TRAFFIC. 447 

family with at least the necessities of life, demands legal 
restriction or prevention. Hence the second proposition, 
that any industrial enterprise which cripples the industrial 
forces of a country needs restrictive or prohibitive legislation. 
Therefore, these two propositions are established. 

In the light of these propositions, as held by political 
economy, how appears the liquor traffic? The magnitude of 
this traffic must first be estimated. There are one hundred 
and sixty-six thousand liquor sellers in the United States ; 
with the manufacturers and clerks of all description the 
number of persons making their support by this traffic, may 
reach that many more, making three hundred and thirty-two 
thousand. Now, the question which political economy puts, 
is, have these three hundred and thirty-two thousand persons 
any right to engage in a traffic which is harmful to the 
economic welfare of all other persons ? 

The following is a detailed statement of the consumption 
of liquors in the United States for the year 1877. The 
prices quoted are the average retail prices : 

Whisky and other spirits, 56,848,525 gallons, at $6.00 retail $341,091,150 

Fermented liquors, 9,074,306 barrels, at $20.00 retail 181,486,120 

Imported brandy and other spirits, 1,386,670 gallons, at $10.00 13,866,700 

Wines, 5,723,469 gallons, at $6.00 34,340,814 

Domestic wines, brandies 25,000,000 

Total $595,784,784 

The consumption in Great Britian for the same year was 
as follows : 

British spirits, 29,889,176 gallons $146,446,180 

Foreign spirits, 10,618,564 gallons 63,711,385 

Wines, 17,671,273 gallons 79.520,730 

Beer, 30,267,641 half barrels 408,613,160 

British wines, cider, etc., estimated at 17,500,000 gallons 8,750,000 

Total $710,040, 155 

This contrast shows that the consumption of liquor is 
vastly more in Great Britain than in this country. But the 
traffic, heavy as it is in this country, is in conflict with the 



448 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

economic welfare of the entire people, and is destructive of 
the industrial forces of the country. These two things are 
proven by the same facts. 

A first observation to make is, that liquor is destructive of 
the organs and powers of the body. Shakespeare takes up 
the role of a philosopher when he makes Cassio say in the 
play of Othello : " O God, that men should put an enemy in 
their mouths to steal away their brains ! That we should, 
with joy, pleasance, revel and applause, transform ourselves 
into beasts." This is the calm judgment of physiology 
to-day relative to liquor in the human system. The first 
effect of liquor on the brain is on that portion known as the 
cerebrum. This is the front and upper portion of the brain, 
and is the seat of the intellect. Here are the lobes which give 
life to reason. Here is the dome of thought, the palace 
of the soul. And here is first felt the evil effect of hquor. 
That effect at first is an undue quickening and agitation of 
the nervous action, producing a stupor, in which state all the 
powers of thought suffer from stupefaction. At this point 
thought is injured ; the finer feelings of virtue-, integrity and 
patriotism are deadened, and the whole intellectual force of 
life is greatly weakened. Webster's massive brain had its 
eloquent machinery of thought clogged by the effect of 
liquor. It is the liquor of moderate drinking that affects 
first this portion of the brain. 

This was lamented by Jefferson when he remarked: 
*'The habit of using ardent spirits by men in office has occa- 
sioned more misery to the public than all other causes. 
And were I to commence my administration again, with the 
experience I now have, the first question I would ask respect- 
ing a candidate would be, 'Does he use ardent spirits?'" 
In this land political thought has been sadly demoralized by 
the effect of liquor upon the brain of political thinkers. It 
even deepens beyond moderate drinking. Civil, appellate 
and supreme courts have lost their sense of dignity in 
drunken riots. Legislative halls have resounded to mad 
revel. Gubernatorial chairs have been dishonored, and the 



EFFECT OF LIQUOR ON THE BRAIN. 449 

senate turned into bacchanalian debauches. Cabinets have 
been lashed with the red tongue of wine. Even the head 
executive of the people put odium on the nation he ruled 
by being crazed with rum. 

Statesmanship exhibits the highest genius to be attained 
by man. It is here that wisdom is exercised in all its col- 
lateral parts to produce, defend and execute laws wholesome 
and wise. Law makers and law executors should have the 
balance power of the mind on the side of calm and temper- 
ate thought. When this holy purpose of law is defeated, 
and the ofificers of law are wrecked in drunkenness, a more 
pitiable scene is not to be witnessed in modern civilization. 
Not strange that he who was wise among the wisest of our 
statesmen should want his cabinets filled by men with nerves 
unshattered, conscience unseared, brains unpoisoned and 
thoughts untainted by ardent spirits. If it unfits for ofifice, 
it unfits for citizenship; if it unfits for citizenship, it is 
treason. If this traffic carries the armed force of treason 
through the country, through its effect upon the cerebrum 
of the brain, it is a traffic antagonistic to the highest interests 
of the whole people. 

The second effect of liquor on the brain is on the cere- 
bellum, which is the upper centre portion of the brain. This 
part of the brain controls the muscles of the body. A press- 
ure on the lobes of the cerebellum affects muscles at the 
extremities of the body. When a man is observed stagger- 
ing under the influence of liquor, it is proof that the poison 
of the liquor is doing its work on the lobes of the cerebellum 
of his brain. 

A third effect, and the last stage of the history of liquor 
in the brain, is when it passes from the cerebellum to the 
medulla oblongata. This is the back and lower portion of 
the brain. This portion of the brain controls the nerves 
of respiration. When liquor, in passing through the brain, 
comes to affect the lobes of the medulla oblongata, sleeping 
and snoring are produced. The movements of the lungs are 
deranged. The effect here is to stupefy the whole moral and 
29 



450 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

intellectual activity. The courage of Booth failed him as 
he went to assassinate the president. Rushing into a saloon 
he drank brandy, and was ready for the crime. Harden the 
brain in alcohol and you harden the moral nature. 

The alcohol of liquor, by its affinity for water, hardens 
all the albumenous substances of the body. It paralyzes the 
nerves, produces arterial relaxation and deranges the circula- 
tion of the blood. In a careful post mortem examination of 
seventy persons who had died from the excessive use of 
liquor, the following facts were reported : The brain was 
white and firm, as though it had lain in alcohol for several 
hours. The lungs in most of the cases were congested or 
inflamed. The heart was flabby, enlarged and loaded with 
heavy fat. The stomach exhibited patches of inflammation, 
and in many cases thickened. The liver in most cases was 
greatly enlarged; in some instances weighing from six to 
twelve pounds. The front of the abdomen, known in 
medical science as the omentum, was loaded with fat. The 
kidneys were enlarged and infiltrated with foreign matter. 
The blood overcharged with albumen. This terrible revela- 
tion of the effect of liquor in the human body puts it as the 
most positive foe to man. 

Mental acuteness, accuracy of perception and delicacy of 
the senses, as well as the vital forces of the system, are all 
diminished and finally break under the effect of liquor upon 
them. The average life of persons not given to the use of 
liquor is sixty-four years and two months ; the average life 
of persons addicted to its use is thirty-five years and six 
months, a showing in favor of abstinence of over twenty- 
eight years. 

Now the bill of indictment that political economy makes 
against the trade of liquor right here, is: It deranges the 
whole physical organism of the body by interfering with the 
normal movements of its machinery, and thus it subtracts 
a large part from the working ability of the body; it injures 
the faculties of the brain, and therefore disqualifies it for 
labor ; it takes twenty-eight years from the average working 



ARRAIGNMENT OF THE TRAFFIC. 45 1 

period of life ; and, therefore, the industrial forces of man's 
body are immeasurably curtailed by the traffic. 

In this count the science of political economy is most 
emphatic and uncompromising in its arraignment of this 
traffic. It is the province of this science to carefully econo- 
mize all the forces of production in order to add to a nation's 
wealth and contribute to its prosperity. To have the 
mental and physical forces of the body incapacitated for 
labor, is to insure the most vindictive condemnation of this 
science. 

Another fact that political economy considers is, that the 
traffic is a constant drain on all the industrial movements of 
the country. It makes a constant demand on the resources 
of the country. There are nearly seventy million gallons of 
liquor manufactured yearly in this country. The amount of 
grain required to manufacture this liquor, estimating the 
yield at three and a half gallons to the bushel, will show an 
annual consumption of about twenty million bushels. The 
value of this grain would be fifteen million dollars. To 
manufacture this amount of liquor would require over six 
million bushels of coal, at a cost of over one million dollars. 
In addition to this, the cost of cooperage, hoop iron, teams 
and wages must be calculated, making in all an annual sacri- 
fice of values to the enormous extent of at least seventy-five 
million dollars to enable this article to reach the hand of the 
retail dealer. In regard to the consumption of soil, the 
entire acreage used for growing grain for the manufacture of 
liquor would reach four million acres. The grain raised on 
this immense acreage, ground into flour, would be sufficient 
to feed two and a half million people. 

There is a vast capital invested in this traffic which, if 
set free and applied to the varied branches of commerce, 
would ease the country of the burden of this trade, and offer 
capital to carry on other great and needed enterprises. The 
total capital held by this traffic is three hundred and sixteen 
million six hundred and ninety-two thousand five hundred 
and sixty dollars. 



452 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Its effect on trade and commerce is felt wherever our 
commerce extends. It knows no satiety; it is never a glut 
in the market. In this it differs from all other articles of 
commerce. Goods of all kinds, and the most valuable, have 
often glutted the market, but this never. Instead of the 
demand determining the supply, the consumption seems to 
increase on the increase of the supply. The trafific is at war 
with all other commercial interests. The profits are deter- 
mined, not by the laws of value and demand, but by the 
greed of the manufacturer and dealer, and are beyond all 
proportion to the profits of labor and capital elsewhere. 
Labor that is under the influence of liquor can never expect 
to secure a rise in wages. 

A number of musical instrument makers have lately for- 
bidden their workmen to use beer under pain of dismissal, 
and is done only on the economic reason that such labor, 
however skilled, cannot produce the best results in such 
delicate mechanism. The loss to labor here is heavy. A 
parliamentary report estimates that the loss in money and 
labor, to employer and laborer in England, is five hundred 
and sixty-three million three hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars per annum. In 1868 England imported food to 
the cost of one hundred and eighty-five millions of dollars, 
and destroyed sixty-three millions of bushels of grain to 
manufacture liquor. In any other direction such an unwise 
measure in economics would have been derided over the 
world. 

It has been computed that a half million of dollars per 
annum in steamboat and railroad disasters have been lost to 
our nation through carelessness and incompetency resulting 
from the use of liquor. The burning of the British ships, 
the George, the Kent, the East India, the Ajax and the 
Edgar, was the result of the same thing. In our commerce 
with savage nations in foreign lands, by first deceiving them 
with liquor we have blocked up our own way for trade, and 
lost incalculably. 

The science of economics is interested in keeping the 



COST OF CRIME. 453 

peace, in order to have all the attention of the country, as 
well as its money, devoted to the industries. And it has 
something to do with the fact that at least two thirds of the 
crime of the United States is the result of liquor. It is in 
this country the great king of crime, whose sceptre is flung 
with measureless confidence across the path of peace. With 
the nerves excited, the heart silenced, and the reason 
dethroned, man is fully equipped for the midnight deed. 
The late Judge Cady, of New York, eminent in criminal 
prosecutions, has left the record that the greater portion of 
trials for murders and assaults and battery, which came 
before his cognizance during his long service as a criminal 
lawyer, originated in liquor. 

The cost of crime in England is thirty millions of dollars 
per annum, and the governor of Canterbury prison reports 
that ninety per cent of the prisoners of England were made 
criminals through the use of liquor. At least five hundred 
millions of dollars are required annually in the United States 
to pay the cost of punishing that proportion of crime which 
is produced by liquor. Political economy puts in two strong 
protests against this, simply on the ground of economics, and 
without considering the moral issues of the matter. This 
immense sum must be gathered by taxation. It was an old 
maxim in the economy of politics, and in which our fathers 
fully believed, that taxation without representation was 
unjust. This tax to provide a fund to hunt down and 
punish crime caused by liquor is unjust when it falls on the 
whole people, as the whole people are in nowise represented 
or interested in the traffic which makes necessary this taxa- 
tion. And again, this five hundred millions of dollars, if 
not demanded for this purpose, would find its way into the 
capital of the various industries, and would become produc- 
tive. Any project which keeps money from the industries 
is an unwise economic measure. 

It is one of the most sad commentaries on American life 
that we are rapidly running up our percentage of insanity. 
And it is just as sad that nearly fifty per cent of our insanity 



454 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

is caused by liquor. This would seem to demand severe 
restrictive measures. The fact that this traffic is engrafting 
on the brain a disorganization of its powers which tends in 
the direction of insanity, is not a pleasant thing to contem- 
plate on either moral or economic grounds. 

This liquor traffic has produced a large per cent of the 
pauperism of the country. A large per cent of the laboring 
class have carried from one fourth to one half of their earn- 
ings to the village saloon. A few years ago the mines and 
factories were in full operation, and under the direction of 
thousands of hands were keeping measure to a nation's 
enterprise. The numberless cottages along the mountain 
sides had but the passing comforts; the surplus was spent 
at the corner grocery. 

Then came the panic of 1873. A few days carried alarm 
into every part of the land. Then the energies of the coun- 
try were taxed to their utmost and finally staggered beneath 
the general crash. And then it was that spindle stood still 
in the factory, and the fire went out in the furnace, and the 
miner's lantern no longer glimmered, and his pick lay unused 
in the mine. And poverty walked up and down the mount- 
ain passes and sent a chill around the cottage walls. The 
husband and father had not thought of this hour, and the 
purse was kept empty to fill the goblet. The flour soon run 
low in the chest. The last piece of bacon was taken down 
from the pantry shelf. The credit was gone at the little 
store. And then "grim want looked in at the window 
and smiled." And in a few months up and down that 
country went an army of beggars. This state of pauperism 
was produced by liquor, and with this traffic political 
economy insists on settling the account. 

This is the charge which, so far as the science of econom- 
ics is concerned, is brought against this traffic. The relation 
of the traffic to morals and religion is not considered, as it 
does not belong here. This drain on the industrial forces 
of the country is resulting in unmeasured harm to the entire 
people, without one compensating feature about it. 



THE REMEDY. 



455 



Hence the final conclusion on the ground of the double 
proposition given at the outset : the liquor traffic is held by 
political economy to be harmful to the majority of the 
people, and drains constantly the industrial forces of the 
country, and on this account it ought to be dealt with by 
strong restrictive or prohibitive legislation. 

Such a traffic demands, under the condemnation of 
industrial science, a strong remedy. What shall the remedy 
be? For many years the sober thought of good, honest 
men has been pondering over this^ evil. 

Since the formation of the Union, various licensing laws 
have been passed in the several states, all, however, so far 
unsatisfactory that they have been made the subject of fre- 
quent change. Legislators seem to have studied the charac- 
ter of the publican rather than the nature of the liquor which 
he sold ; they appear to have thought that if the seller was a 
good man alcohol would do no harm. After taking infinite 
pains to obtain pious publicans, and constantly failing in the 
attempt, the clever device was adopted in Massachusetts of 
requiring the county commissioners to take an oath that 
they would ** faithfully and impartially, without fear, favor 
or hope of reward, discharge the duties of their office, 
respecting all licenses and respecting all recommendations " ; 
but after all this swearing, the evils of the traffic continued 
to grow. This license systen is objectionable. It is a ques- 
tion whether government has an economic right to license 
such an evil. It does not rest on an economic right, but 
exhibits an economic outrage. The policy of this theory is 
to increase the revenue. But as the traffic paralyzes instead 
of stimulates industry, it is unwise to license it. It is an 
unprofitable source of revenue. It puts in with one hand 
and takes out with a myriad. It produces in Chicago one 
hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars revenue per 
annum, and it costs the city nine hundred and thirty thou- 
sand dollars. As an economic policy, license is a failure. 

Another remedy which is growing in favor is out and out 
prohibition. This may become the pohcy of the future ; that 



456 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

it can be the means of the present is exceedingly doubtful. 
In legislating upon this traflfic, a wise law-maker would 
remember that the craving for stimulants is universal among 
mankind ; that the right of a man to decide whether or not 
he needs a stimulant cannot be declared by any general law, 
because each case must necessarily be judged upon its own 
features, and it must therefore practically be left to himself; 
that it is not a function of law to prevent a man injuring 
himself — else the government would have to interfere in 
every act of our lives: but only to prevent him from injuring 
others ; and that, finally, a law prohibiting the sale and use 
of an article in universal demand cannot be carried into 
effect without vexatious and justly hateful searches in private 
houses and interference with individual desires and tastes. 
To a wise law-maker, therefore, greatly as he might be 
impressed with the evils arising to society out of the misuse 
of spirituous liquors, a general law totally prohibiting their 
use and sale within a state, or the United States, would seem 
inexpedient, because it could not be enforced. 

Prohibition has been made a test of popular feeling on 
the trafific; and in spite of the seeming objections, it may 
come into more general favor. The first prohibitory law 
was enacted in Maine in 1851, and, with the exception of 
the two years 1856 and 1857, has been continued, and it 
remains the law of the state to the present time. After the 
two exceptional years, legislators were chosen by large 
majorities, who, in 1858, reenacted the prohibitory law, and 
since that time Governor Dingle states that, " The opposi- 
tion to the law obviously grew weaker from year to year, 
and although there were frequent attempts to secure a 
legislature favorable to its repeal, yet they always failed." 

The state of Maine contains thirty-five thousand square 
miles, with a population in 1880 of six hundred and forty- 
eight thousand nine hundred and thirty-six. 

Throughout the whole of the state there is not a single 
distillery in operation. The law is not actively enforced in 
every town or district in the state, but that it has upon 



THE EXPERIMENT AT VINELAND. 457 

the whole been effective in a degree which must be highly 
satisfactory to its advocates is evident from the fact that the 
liquor revenue from Maine in 1873 was forty-nine thousand 
two hundred and thirty-seven dollars, whereas, from Connect- 
icut, with a population of ninety thousand less than that of 
Maine, the revenue was three hundred and thirty-six thousand 
seven hundred and forty-three dollars, and from Maryland, 
where the population is one fourth more than in Maine, the 
revenue was one million two hundred and eighty-five thou- 
sand seven hundred dollars. In the year ending June 30, 
1876, the revenue from Maine was twenty-seven thousand 
seven hundred and seventy-three dollars. 

It is clearly seen that it is popular opinion that has enabled 
the prohibition of the trafific to be a success in Maine. Until 
popular demand calls for this kind of legislation in other 
states, economic reasons would suggest resort to other, and 
restrictive, measures. 

Almost any^ county, or town, except the larger j;:ities, 
may adopt the permissive, or local option, poHcy, which is 
always practical. The permissive principle appears to afford 
the most suitable and effective form in which social legislation 
can be applied. It is useless to attempt the enforcement of 
a law which is opposed to the pecuniary interests of a large 
class of traders, unless the principle on which it is founded is 
abundantly sustained by public opinion. This is not likely 
to be the case in every town throughout a large state ; and, 
therefore, a permissive bill, allowing its adoption where 
public sentiment is sufficiently advanced, may be useful when 
legal prohibition for the whole state may be a failure. 

Public sentiment would here, by providing for an annual 
vote, 'have the keeping of the law. This course has been 
pursued for a number of years in the township of Vineland, 
in New Jersey, and the people annually vote to refuse all 
licenses to sell liquor. They have found, as the result of 
their firmness, that crime and pauperism are almost entirely 
banished from their town. This policy would bring us back 
to the town-meeting system of New England, and thus one 



458 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

of the most important political reforms possible in our system 
would then be brought about ; for thus the people of a small 
locality, in public meeting assembled, would once more 
discuss their local affairs, and vote directly upon the policy 
they wish to pursue and the money they are willing to 
spend for public purposes. In this way each citizen has 
opportunity to bring up such suggestions as he pleases, 
recommending them with his best ability; there alone the 
people act directly, and not by delegates, and by this demo- 
cratic parliament the local affairs of the township — its roads, 
schools, police, health — can and will be the most efificiently 
and economically managed. 

Under the inspiration of the integrity, patriotism and 
spirit of industry, and with a careful scrutiny, and a speedy 
and constant correction of the evils, as shown to be constit- 
uent parts of our national life, our nation is destined to 
become the great republic of history. It is to continue in 
the same general career it has hitherto pursued. The same 
great truths its history has developed and realized in civil, 
industrial and moral life are to still further emerge. The 
proposition that all are created equal is to be still further 
developed, and give shape to other and grander truths. 
Human rights are to be still further vindicated, and freed 
from the oppression of evils of all kind. No law that 
asserts the dignity of human character is to be abrogated, 
no principle of industrial honor is to be repudiated. The 
republic is to become a still brighter and clearer sign to 
the nations to show them the way to liberty, peace and 
prosperity. 

Our forefathers — God bless their memory — were inspired 
to make an experiment. It was a pure experiment. 
"Whether the clear definitions of civil and political rights 
could be reached by the representatives of the people; 
whether a few feeble colonists could resist the oppression of 
a mighty nation, and, by eight years of bloody war, establish 
their independence; whether the 'constitution adopted could 
be sustained as the fundamental law of the land, until it had 



THE HOPE OF THE NATION. 459 

triumphed over and worked out its own vices ; whether the 
freedom of the ballot and elections could be maintained; 
whether minorities would submit to majorities ; whether the 
permanence of executive government could be secured with- 
out a dynasty and an hereditary nobility ; whether a nation 
made up of people separated by state lines could vindicate 
its sovereignty ; whether the people could put down a great 
rebellion ; and whether a republic could grapple with and 
ultimately destroy the intensest form of despotism known 
among men — were questions of most critical experiment. 
But under the control of Providence they are settled ; and 
wise men abroad have just ceased to speak of the republic 
of America as a grand experiment, destined to a signal fail- 
ure. It has passed through the severest tests to which a 
nation has ever been subjected, and endured them all, 
emerging at last with the smile of a seraph from its baptism 
of blood." 

The spirit of liberty is aggressive, the principles of our 
industries are progressive, and the patriotism of our people 
can be trusted. Under these strong industrial and moral 
forces and divine Providence, our National Life will grow 
through the centuries. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 

A LITTLE past the middle of the eighteenth century in 
the crowded county of Surry, England, was born 
Thomas Malthus ; his father, a man of broad learning, was 
the friend and correspondent of Rousseau, and shared with 
the French scholar a liking for social problems. The child 
inherited the same mental trait. He became a clergyman, 
but devoted his time to the study of social and moral evils. 

Some of the most able writers on political economy have 
felt the important connection between the social evils and 
the industries of a country. But Malthus was the first since 
Plato to see the desire of putting a check on rapid increase 
of population. In 1798 he brought out his great work on 
the " Principle of Population," in which he argued that the 
population was increasing at a faster rate than the supply of 
food. He drew a most doleful picture of what must happen 
if population continued to increase and land did not. This 
had such an effect on Mill that he was forced to the conclu- 
sion that it would become necessary to put a check on popu- 
lation ; and he urges the duty on the laboring classes to 
bring fewer children into the world. The work of Malthus 
met with a great deal of surprise, and received a good deal of 
attention. The idea of his theory was suggested by reading 
Hume on the " Populousness of Ancient Nations," and it 
was called out in his teaching by a provoked assault upon 
the theory of the school of Rousseau that nature was regen- 
erate enough to correct its own evils, unaided by legal 
restraint or moral interference — gross optimism, which, in 
fatal blindness to the real conditions which surround life, was 
responsible for the French Revolution. 

The central idea in the system of Malthus is one which 

460 



THE THEORY OF MALTHUS. 461 

concerns political economy very closely ; that is, the improve- 
ment of society. This is the moral side of industrial science. 
In this discussion Malthus recognized two considerations : 
first, the causes which have impeded the progress of the race ; 
and second, the partial or entire removal of these causes. 
He thought he could reduce the first to a single proposition : 
that is, the tendency in all life to increase beyond the 
nourishment provided for it. Life on this planet if unre- 
stricted would fill a million worlds in a few hundred years. 
In this rapid increase there is reached a point beyond which, 
if it continues, unmeasured misery will result. There is only 
one limit to the indefinite increase, and that is necessity. In 
plants and irrational animals, which are directed only by 
blind instinct untroubled with doubts about providing for 
their offspring, the problem is simple ; in their case increase 
is checked only by want of room and nourishment. In the 
case of man, to whose instinct is added reason, the question 
is more complicated. Here increase, if hindered at all, must 
either be checked by preventive restraint, which is apt to 
lead to vice ; or a constant check, arising from the difificulty 
of acquiring food, must be in operation. 

Malthus thought that unchecked population does tend to 
increase beyond the means of subsistence. This is shown by 
a comparison of natural increase of population, when left to 
exert itself with perfect freedom, and the increase of subsist- 
ence under the most favorable conditions. It is likewise 
shoAvn by a study of the different states of society in which 
man has existed. 

. In showing that the natural increase of the race was 
faster than the possible increase of food, Malthus calculated 
that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself 
every twenty-five years. It has been estimated by some 
that population may, and actually has, doubled itself in 
thirteen years. If population will double every twenty-five 
years, what means can be effectual for such a rapid increase 
in food. No improvements in agriculture can keep pace 
with such marvelous increase. If a small section of country 



462 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

be taken for an illustration, it may be supposed that the 
second twenty-five years of its cultivation the production of 
the soil may be double what it was the first twenty-five. 
But no amount of skill and labor can make the production 
for the third period of twenty-five years double what it was 
for the second period. If a population of ten thousand 
inhabit a section ten miles square, the production of the soil 
of that section may quite support this people. But where at 
the second twenty-five years this population reaches twenty 
thousand persons, it may require the most careful tilling to 
make the production of the soil sustain this number. And 
where at the third period this population reaches forty thou- 
sand, the capacity of the soil fails, and there are more people 
than can be sustained. If we apply this, as Malthus did, to 
the whole earth, we would have an increase of population 
much greater than the means of subsistence ; and the world 
would soon present a condition of starvation. 

This was the doleful picture drawn by Malthus. He 
thought that the most fertile spots of country are first occu- 
pied ; as population increased the best soil lost its fertility 
and the poorest came into use; and so the more mouths the 
less food. In this struggle the weakest would perish — and 
here Malthus and Darwin are one. The theory of Malthus 
here is that on which Mills bases his appeal for a decrease in 
the growth of population. 

If there is a probable danger of the population of the 
world outgrowing the means for subsistence, then population 
can be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence 
only by a legislative law, or by the strong law of necessity 
operating as a check and compelling a restraint. 

There are some strong objections to the theory of 
Malthus. In the first place, in making his estimates of the 
rapid increase of population, he makes them from observa- 
tions of some special section, where the increase is unchecked, 
and then applies the results to the whole race. His mistake 
here is that he does not take into consideration those 
customs, diseases and evils which so greatly destroy the 



THE MISTAKE OF MALTHUS. 463 

human race. An earthquake will destroy an entire island : 
a famine will depopulate a whole region ; a plague will cut 
off half a country; a pestilence will greatly reduce a whole 
continent ; a war will kill off the able men of two nations ; 
the customs and habits which impair health, break up the life 
forces, and breed disease, will cut down the years of a genera- 
tion vastly, as well as reduce the generative powers. The 
plagues of Egypt carried full five hundred thousand from the 
cradle to the grave in a few hours ; on the single night of the 
twenty-fourth of August, in the seventy-ninth year of the 
first century, the Vesuvian mount vomited a stream of fire 
and ashes which ere morning had buried the thirty-five 
thousand inhabitants of Pompeii ; though it took Troy ten 
years to fall, a whole nation fell with the Trojan fate; 
Napoleon reduced the male population of France one third ; 
the famine of India destroys a million and a quarter of lives 
in one year. This is but a small chip from the world's 
history of disasters. Famine, pestilence and war have been 
acting as checks on the increase of population to an extent 
that cannot be estimated. The vices, customs and evil 
habits are another series of restraining forces on the increase 
of population. To every thirty persons born in the United 
States one person is killed by drinking. These vices not 
only shorten life but transfer tendencies to weakness and 
short life to offspring. All these restrictions must be 
weighed in considering the Malthusian protest against 
increase of population. And with them all must be taken 
such checks upon the longevity of life as exposure to the 
seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, large 
towns, and excesses of all kinds. 

Another mistake in the Malthusian argument is the claim 
that the most fertile lands are taken first, and that after the 
first fifty years of the settlement of a country the best soil is 
already under its best cultivation. As a rule, the opposite 
is the fact. Settlements are made first along the coast and 
on the uplands, which are never so fertile as the interior 
sections of a continent. Almost the first portions of the 



464 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

American continent which received careful cultivation were 
the New England hills, and no poorer soil, in its natural 
state, can be found in the New World. The rich woodland 
of the interior, and the valleys and prairies of the west, are 
only coming under cultivation within the present generation ; 
and some of the finest soil of America, soil of prodigious 
productive power, will lay unoccupied for a quarter of a 
century yet. 

Nor is it true that the best soil will wear out under the 
most advanced art of agriculture. Under the most perfect 
art of farming, soil of the best composition will retain a high 
grade of productiveness. The history of civilization shows 
that as population increases and has a greater demand for 
food, agriculture is improved most wonderfully; morasses 
are saved, barren spots are supplied with soil, old lands 
are redeemed, and all parts are made to bear larger crops. 

The most fertile parts of the globe still lay largely uncul- 
tivated, and are in the hands of savages. When Malthus 
was teaching his theory, the great continent of Australia lay 
unoccupied ; now it supports millions, and adds enormously 
to the clothing and food supply of the world. When Mills 
was writing a plea, under the influence of the teaching of 
Malthus, for a check on population, California was occupied 
only by cattle and a few Mexicans. Texas, a territory larger 
than France, is almost empty, and the soil of Texas is 
as productive as the Valley of the Nile. South America, 
whose products are as yet hardly known in the markets of 
the world, could support a people larger in numbers than 
those of Europe and America together. Oceanica, now 
having a few hundred thousand, will seat in the lap of its 
alluvial soil half as many million. As much may be said of 
the future awaiting New Guinea. Africa is a massive conti- 
nent — as yet the dark continent — but remarkably fertile, 
with a climate as healthy as any in the world, and yet it is 
unoccupied except by a tribal people. The United States 
could locate within her domain the four hundred millions of 
China, and feed them most sumptuously on the fat of the 



THE OUTLOOK. 465 

land. Every farm in this country has wasted land enough 
to support a family. The world lies open, under better 
management, to a hundredfold increase of population. 

But there is one proposition, not expressed by Malthus, 
that does give a grave side to the problem of population. 
In the process of the improvement of agriculture there is 
reached a point beyond which productiveness cannot be 
increased, while in the increase of population there is no 
point where it will stop. Hence there may come a time 
when the food supply of the whole earth will not be sufficient 
to feed the people inhabiting the earth. 

This being a possibility, it is a part of the science of 
national life to consider means preventive, if there are any. 
Malthus had two remedies for over-population: one was 
emigration. But this is clearly only a postponement of the 
evil, and is of consequence only in maintaining a balance of 
population in all countries proportioned by the food supply. 
His other and strong method was moral self-restraint. His 
single precept was, " Do not marry till you have a fair pros- 
pect of supporting a family." The greatest and highest 
moral result of his system is that it clearly and emphatically 
teaches the responsibihty of parentage, and curses the sin of 
those who bring human beings into the world for whose 
physical, intellectual and moral well-being no satisfactory 
provision is made. 

One of the sciences of most prodigious benefit to the 
race, and one yet hardly noticed, is that of the propagation 
of human life. In the near future it will receive more atten- 
tion. Moral obligation will be the flaming tongue of this 
new science. Any legal restraint at this date would likely 
result in great vice. To educate is the only hope. It may 
at least be a suggestive observation, if it will not some day 
be rightly considered a crime, for one set of parents to bring 
into the world a dozen human beings. Moral science will 
here have to take the lead of economic science. 
30 



CHAPTER XLII. 

TABULAR ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF 
GOVERNMENT. 

THE following table gives a summary view of the Amer- 
ican system of government, according to the different 
civil divisions and subdivisions recognized in our system, and 
with their duties and ofificers. 

It will be seen by this table how we proceed, step by step, 
from the smallest possible civil division — that of the school 
district, where the people act directly upon measures which 
most immediately concern their growth and happiness, to 
the largest, to which general powers only are intrusted, and 
having reference solely to the welfare and security of the 
whole Nation, and which covers the entire policy of a great 
general government in its relation to both home and foreign 
affairs. 

It will be observed by this table that by this wise division 
of the powers, functions and duties of this system, first, 
government is made less cumbrous and heavy, and is for this 
reason likely to be more efificient and economical; second, 
that as the power of a subdivision becomes more formidable, 
it is less intimately brought in contact with the people. 
Hence the state government does not concern itself with 
roads, and the Federal Government has no charge of the 
schools or the police. Third, that the people are accustomed 
as much as possible to act directly upon their local and 
private interests, leaving only matters of more extended 
interest to the charge of the more distant and representative 
divisions of the government. From all this it will be noticed 
how well our system is adapted to the progress and propriety 
of the people. 

466 



DIVISIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 



467 



Name of Division. 


Has charge of 


Officers. 


School District. 


The free or public school. 


School trustees. 


To-dunship. 


Local peace, small offenses 
in justice's court; roads, 
grounds, local nuisances, 
paupers, taxes, schools. 


Trustees, justice of the 
peace, constable, clerk, 
road-master, assessor, 
and collector of taxes. 


County, 


Main or county roads and 
bridges ; nuisances, pub- 
lic health, general police, 
crimes and general offenses, 
county court, clerk for pub- 
lic records, administration 
of wills, superintendence of 
schools and of paupers, col- 
lection of taxes for state 
and county jail, poor-house, 
orphan home. 


Judge, prosecuting attor- 
ney, clerk, public ad- 
ministrator, sheriff, su- 
perintendent of schools, 
coroner, treasurer, su- 
pervisors or commis- 
sioners, surveyor. 


State. 


General peace and order; the 
enactment and enforce- 
ment of all laws applicable 
to the whole state, and 
under which all local bodies 
act, and to which they are 
subject (the state laws are 
the supreme law of the 
state, all county or town- 
ship laws to the contrary 
notwithstanding), militia 
drills, corporations, right 
of suffrage. 


Governor, secretary of 
state, treasurer, auditor, 
attorney-general, super- 
intendent of education ^ 
circuit courts and courts 
of appeal, public works, 
legislature. 


Federal, 


War and peace, foreign re- 
lations, public lands, In- 
dians, army and navy, light- 
houses, customs' duties, 
coinage, weights and meas- 
ures, post-offices. 


President, secretaries of 
state, treasury, interior, 
war, navy, postmaster- 
general and attorney 1 
general, postmasters, 
revenue collectors of 
different kinds, and a 
multitude of other offi- 
cers and clerks. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

STATE GOVERNMENT. 

AS the cabinet, congress and the bench constitute the 
three important departments of our National Govern- 
ment, so they form the three particular branches of all local 
government — state, county and town. 

The executive department of a state consists of a gov- 
ernor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor, treas- 
urer, attorney-general and superintendent of public instruc- 
tion. These officers are elected by the people direct, for 
terms of different length in different states. In most of the 
states the term is either two or four years. In the New 
England states the term is but one year. The qualifications 
are unlike in the different states. The eligibility consists in 
being of a certain age, a certain length of time a citizen of 
the United States, a certain time a citizen of the state, and 
in some states a property qualification. 

The chief of the executive department of a state is the 
governor, who sustains the same relation to his state that 
the president does to the United States. He represents the 
state in its dealings with other states. He is commander-in- 
chief of the military force of the state, and can call it out in 
times of insurrection. He has charge of the execution of 
the laws, and can require the chiefs of the different branches 
of the executive to give information concerning their respect- 
ive departments. He sends annually a message to the legis- 
lature giving ofificial information relative to affairs in the 
state, and recommending needed measures. His signature, 
in most states, is necessary to a legislative act before it can 
become a law. He has the power to call the legislature in 
extra session, upon the occurrence of extraordinary occa- 
sions which require immediate legislative attention. He 

468 



STATE OFFICERS AND THEIR DUTIES. 469 

has power to grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons, 
except in cases of impeachment, and in some states, of trea- 
son. To reprieve is to postpone the execution of a sentence. 
To commute sentence is to exchange one penalty for another 
of less severity. To pardon is to annul the sentence and 
liberate the offender. In most states all under officers are 
appointed by the governor, subject to the approval of the 
senate. He fills vacancies in elective offices which occur by 
removal of the occupant. He may, in some states, remove 
for misconduct. In a few states he has an executive council, 
but this is rapidly disappearing from our state systems. 

The lieutenant-governor is not a provision of all the 
states, as he has but few duties. He presides in the senate, 
where he has merely a deciding vote. The chief intention 
of the provision is, to be prepared for the contingency of the 
removal of the governor. 

The secretary of state is the most important of officers in 
the state, next to the governor. He has charge of the seal 
of the state, state papers and records, and keeps a record 
of the acts of the legislature, and the executive. He con- 
firms and distributes the copies of law, as directed by the 
legislature. 

The auditor manages the finances of the state, and directs 
all business relative to the money, debts, land and other 
property belonging to the state. He examines and adjusts 
all accounts against the state, superintends the collection 
of all money, and when money is to be paid out, draws a 
warrant on the state treasurer. 

The treasurer has charge of the money belonging to the 
state, pays out all money drawn upon him by the warrant of 
the auditor, as determined by law, and keeps an accurate 
account of all such disposition of the state's money. With 
the auditor he is required to give bond for the faithful per- 
formance of duty, so if he in any way defaults the state the 
bondsmen secure the people against loss. 

The attorney-general is the attorney for the state in all 
cases in which the state may become involved in law. He 



470 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

prosecutes all parties indebted to the state when prosecution 
is necessary, and brings to trial persons charged with crimes 
against the state, or who are in open treason against the 
established acts of the legislature. He is expected to deliver 
an opinion on questions of law submitted to him by the 
legislature, the governor, or any of the chief officers of state. 

The superintendent of public instruction is at the head of 
the school system. He has under his control the school 
matters of the state, gives an opinion on all questions rela- 
tive to school law, directs the preparation of papers for 
examinations, and superintends the educational interests of 
the state in general. 

The executive of a state, as the executive of the nation, 
is well qualified and equipped to manage the affairs of the 
commonwealth. It is upon the large powers conferred 
within the limits of the constitution of a state upon the 
executive that increases the responsibility of the executive 
head, and responsibility is apt to produce faithfulness. 

Each state in the Federal Union has a legislative depart- 
ment composed of two houses — the senate and the house of 
representatives. Though both are representative bodies, 
only the lower house is called the house of representatives. 
The reason for this is, that in the colonial government there 
was but one representative body. The other branch of the 
legislature was called a council, and comprised a small num- 
ber of men appointed by the king. After the colonies 
became incorporated under the constitution in the national 
government, the states substituted the senate for the old 
council, and the lower house kept its former name. 

The members of both branches of this department are 
elected direct by the people, and to serve a term of years, 
which is different in the different states. The senate is the 
smaller body, mostly elected according to the congressional 
districts. They are chosen with reference to their superior 
ability and experience in public affairs. The basis of appor- 
tionment for both houses is that of population. 

The qualifications for membership to either branch of the 



DUTIES OF THE LEGISLATURE. 



471 



legislative department are of the same character as those 
relative to the executive, but lower in degree. Vacancies 
in either house may be filled by special or regular election, 
as the constitution of each state may provide. 

The legislature meets as often as the respective state 
constitutions require, and always, except when the state is 
involved in war, at the capital of the state. When the two 
houses meet in their respective halls, and the oath has been 
administered, they proceed to organize and listen to the 
governor's message. 

The legislative power of each state extends to the right 
to enact any law, on any subject whatever, not forbidden by 
the constitution of the United States, its own constitution, 
or at variance with any law of congress. 

Most of the work is placed in the hands of committees, 
who meet in private rooms, during hours when their bodies 
are not in session, and any person wishing to argue a meas- 
ure before a committee may appear before the committee 
having it in charge. 

If a committee reports favorably on a measure, it brings 
in a bill and recommends its passage. A bill is the form or 
draft of a law. A bill before it is voted on is read three 
times on three separate days. In some cases of minor 
importance the first and second readings are on the same 
day. Amendments to a bill can only be introduced on the 
first and second readings of it. The passage of a bill in 
most of the state legislative bodies requires a majority of 
all the members elected to each house. 

When a bill has passed one house it is sent to the other, 
where it is placed in the hands of a committee, reported by 
the committee to the house, and acted on after the third 
readine. The bill is returned to the house with which it 
originated. If it has been amended, the amendments must 
be agreed to by the house originating the bill, when it 
becomes a law, subject to the approval of the governor. 

Upon the governor signing a bill, or if he vetoes it, then, 
upon its passage of both houses by a two-thirds vote, it 



472 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

becomes a law, either the moment of receiving the gov- 
ernor's signature, or on its passage over his veto, or at a 
stated time after its passage ; the date for it to take effect 
determined either by the constitution or by the law itself. 

The judicial department of a state government consists 
of the courts of a state. The higher courts of a state are 
usually established by its constitution, the lower by the 
legislative. 

No two states are exactly alike in the names given the 
different branches of this department. Those in most states 
are the supreme court, the circuit court and the justices" 
court. 

The supreme court fills in the state judiciary the same 
place as the national supreme court does in the United 
States judiciary. It usually has three judges and the court 
has only appellate jurisdiction. Any case, either civil or 
criminal, may be appealed to it from the lower courts. 

There are a number of circuit courts in each state, one 
for each district into which the state may be divided. In 
some states they are called district, in other states superior, 
courts. They have original jurisdiction in all civil and crim- 
inal cases, and are the courts in which the largest number of 
cases are tried. The circuit courts also hear appeals from 
the lower courts. 

The justices' court is the lowest branch of the judiciarj. 
One is established in each township, and it has charge of 
civil cases involving small amounts, and has the jurisdiction 
to try parties indicted for small offenses. They have pre- 
liminary jurisdiction in cases of graver criminal character, 
and in ascertaining criminal evidence can bind over to the 
next higher court. 

A probate court is established in each county. Its 
powers and duties relate to the settlement of estates of 
deceased persons ; it being the function of this court to see 
that they go to the parties entitled to them. It is required 
to take proof of wills and empower executors to act. In 
case a person dies without a will the probate court appoints 



WHERE THE STATE HAS EXCLUSIVE AUTHORITY. 473 

an administrator who distributes the personal property 
among the relatives to whom it belongs by law. It has 
power to remove an executor or administrator if he fails to 
attend to duty. It also takes charge of the estates of minors 
and appoints guardians for them. 

In some few states there are what are called county courts, 
courts of common pleas, and courts of terminer, which have 
jurisdiction in special direction, but whose functions are, in 
most instances, discharged by the circuit court. 

In some states judges are elected by the people, in some 
by the legislature, in some appointed by the governor. The 
terms of office vary from six to ten years for the higher 
courts. In a few states the judges of the supreme court are 
elected for life. 

A state government has the exclusive authority to main- 
tain peace and order within its limits, to punish crimes, 
except those committed against the United States or against 
the laws of nations ; to appoint the police and maintain the 
prisons; to regulate the tenure of lands and the rules of 
inheritance. It has charge of education and the public 
health ; it creates and regulates all corporations, such as rail- 
road and insurance companies, within its limits ; it declares 
who of its citizens shall vote ; it may regulate the sale of 
liquors and poisons, and abolish nuisances. In all these 
matters and others of the same kind, the state has jurisdic- 
tion and power, to the exclusion of the Federal Government ; 
and the governor, the state courts and the state legislature 
have abundant power to perform all their duties. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

COUNTY AND TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT. 

EACH state in the American Union, except Louisiana, 
is divided into counties, and these are divided into 
townships, in some states called towns. This is a great 
convenience in the legislative, executive and judicial work of 
a state. Laws may be needed in one part of a state which 
would be uncalled for in other parts. Local laws can best 
be formed by each district for itself. 

Counties in England were formerly districts governed by 
counts, from which comes the name county. A county was 
also called a shire, and an offtcer was appointed by the count 
to have jurisdiction over criminals in bringing them to 
justice, who was called shire-reeve, or sheriff. He was a 
more important ofificer than is the sheriff of a county in this 
country. The principal town in a county was called a 
county seat. 

The most important of^cial authority in a county is the 
board of county commissioners, which usually consists of 
three members. The board have full charge of the county 
property, contract for county buildings, and direct all county 
improvements. 

Each county has a treasurer, who receives and pays out 
county funds; an auditor, who adjusts and passes upon the 
accounts and debts of the county; a recorder, who preserves 
records of wills, mortgages, deeds and all important docu- 
ments ; a sherifT, who issues all writs and warrants directed 
by the court, to apprehend parties charged with crime and to 
have charge of the jail and prisoners; a coroner, who holds 
an inquest over persons suddenly and mysteriously meeting 
death ; a district or prosecuting attorney, who conducts in 
the court all cases of prosecution for crime. 

474 



RESPONSIBILITY OF COUNTY GOVERNMENT. 475 

In most of the states all county officers are elected directly 
by the people, for terms of from one to four years. In some 
states some of the county officials are elected by boards 
provided by the provision of the constitution of the state. 

A wise exercise of the functions of law and a prompt 
administration of justice in the county will greatly enhance 
the interests of peace and justice in the state and in the 
nation. The prompt arrest of crime by the local authorities 
would prevent its growth and spread. For this reason the 
selection of county officials should not be left to selfish 
designers or political demagogues, but the men best qualified 
by honesty of purpose, economy of management and firm 
determination to hunt down criihe with the sternness of the 
law, should be called to the service of the people. In the 
county, above all other divisions of our commonwealth, the 
interests of party ought to be subservient to the concern for 
justice. The hardest thing for the American people to learn 
is to do right in the small things of politics. When politics 
rule the local conventions and elections, honor and principle 
take their departure. American citizenship is yet to be 
trained to the duty of its responsibility in the exercise of its 
local privileges. 

In all the states except those of the far west, and some of 
those of the south, the county is divided into townships. In 
those states where the townships do not exist, the county 
directs all the local governmental powers. The government 
of the township is directed by local officers, called so widely 
different in different sections as to preclude a classification 
that would meet any great number of states. The duties of 
the township government are very simple and refer mostly 
to schools, roads and small civil and criminal disturbances. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

CITY GOVERNMENT. 

A CITY is a civil corporation created by the states, and 
governed according to a charter framed by the state 
legislature, and which may be altered or repealed by that body 
at will. This charter prescribes the duties and defines the 
powers of the rulers just as any other civil constitution does. 

In our system cities have become the strongholds of 
misrule. This arises from two causes: First, the city govern- 
ment concerns itself more intimately with the lives of the 
inhabitants than any other, wherefore there is a proportion- 
ately greater possibility of corruption and maladministration ; 
second, city charters, almost without exception, subdivide 
power and responsibility among boards or commissions, and 
thus disable the people from discovering the authors of 
corruption and misrule, and from punishing them even if 
they are known. 

The inhabitants of a city depend upon the central civil 
authorities to make, repair and clean the streets, to regulate 
the police, to abate nuisances, to protect them against fires, 
to adopt and enforce health regulations, to grant licenses to 
sell liquor, to provide public markets, to regulate street cars 
and gas pipes, to care for the water supply, to manage the 
parks and other public places, to take charge of paupers, to 
control hospitals, to manage the free schools, to control 
wharves and piers, if it is a seaport ; and to do a number of 
other things, of which some, outside of cities, are done by 
each citizen for himself, or by the private enterprise of citi- 
zens united for that purpose, and others are divided among 
county, township and school-district authorities, each inde- 
pendently and directly responsible to the people. Moreover, 
all public work in a city is on a large scale, and involves 

476 



u..-i 



RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY GOVERNMENT. 477 

very great expenditures, compared with those of a rural 
district. Finally, the population of a city is less homo- 
geneous in character than that of a rural district ; the 
proportion of poverty is much greater; the number of 
people who live from hand to mouth is larger; the average 
of comfort is lower; the dependent part of the population 
is more numerous. At the same time little or nothing is 
left for the people to determine in the smaller divisions — 
the wards and school districts — and they are thus made 
politically ignorant. 

Under such circumstances it is of great importance that 
the central power, to which so much is assigned, shall be 
clearly visible to the people, in order that they may always 
and easily hold it responsible. The entire executive power 
and responsibility ought to be given to a single man — the 
mayor — because, then, every citizen who had cause of com- 
plaint would know whom to blame. The mayor ought to 
have the appointment of all his subordinates, because thus 
only can he hold them to their duty. The executive powers 
— that is to say, the enforcement of the laws — ought not in 
any detail to be assumed by the council, for this is a m.ost 
fertile source of corruption. The council, which is the city's 
legislature, ought to be a numerous body, so that each coun- 
cilman or alderman should be personally known to his small 
constituency, who could then oblige him to care for their 
interests, and punish him for neglect or corruption. Finally, 
the courts in a city ought to possess a very high character, 
and neither judges nor justices of the peace ought to be 
elected, but should be appointed — probably by the gov- 
ernor of the state — and for hfe or good behavior, and they 
should have large salaries. With such a system, the city 
government would be amenable at all times to the will 
of the inhabitants, who could punish extravagance, and 
inefficiency, or any kind of maladministration, at the elec- 
tions, if they chose, and could at any rate make as good a 
government as they wished. Moreover, where great power 
is given to an executive, able men like the place and will 



478 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

seek it ; for able men like to exercise power. But if the 
people make of a governor or mayor a figure-head, and give 
the real power to others, the office falls into contempt. 

Now almost all our city governments in this country are 
framed on principles directly contrary to those stated above. 
The executive powers, which ought to be concentrated in a 
mayor, are divided among different boards and commissions, 
and are thus frittered away. The council is usually a small 
body; the judges and justices of peace are elected, together 
with a large number of executive officers ; the different parts 
of the executive hold office for different periods, and the 
people can never, at a single election, remove all the officers 
who have been concerned in maladministration ; and finding 
themselves thus disabled, and compelled, moreover, to vote 
for a great number of officers of whose character and fitness 
they cannot inform themselves, they presently lose all interest 
in public affairs, and resign th:: political power to knaves 
and their tools. The mayor of a city like New York, did 
he have the powers which belong to the office, would have 
authority and patronage almost equal to that of the presi- 
dent of the United States, and the office would be one for 
which the ablest citizens would strive. But if he has no 
power, or but little, really able men will refuse the place. 

City governments are made needlessly cumbrous and 
currupt, also, by performing some duties which might well 
be left to private effort. For instance, the fire-insurance 
companies could manage a fire department much more 
cheaply and effectively than a political government. Again^ 
the question of licensing drinking-shops might well be left 
to the people in the wards. Street cleaning could, perhaps, 
be left to the wards, also, though, as it has to do with the 
general health, this might not be possible unless the city 
government assumed not only the inspection of streets, but 
the punishment by fine of those ward authorities who neg- 
lected this duty. Finally, the city ought not to own market 
spaces, docks, piers, or other property used by private indi- 
viduals. The city government should exercise, of course, 



HOW TO REFORM CITY GOVERNMENT. 479 

the right of police and inspection, but it cannot own and 
manage such property either profitably or efficiently. 

Municipal governments greatly need to be reformed, and 
a way in which this may be effected is, first, by relieving 
them of work which they cannot do well, and next by fixing 
power and responsibility upon the mayor. What is wanted 
is to enable the people readily, and at a single effort, to 
change the whole administration ; then they can really 
punish maladministration, and they undoubtedly will, when- 
ever it begins to oppress or offend them. For the mass of 
the people are vitally interested in moderately good govern- 
ment, and will inevitably get it if the machinery of gov- 
ernment is so arranged that they can, by willing it at the 
polls, punish the inefficient or corrupt rulers. 



I 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 

N all the constitutions, Federal and state, the people have 

reserved to themselves certain rights and immunities, 
which none of their governments are allowed to interfere 
with ; and it is important that these be should understood. 

As an American citizen, every man is a free man ; and no 
one has a right to enslave his person, except for crime, for 
which he must first be convicted, upon a fair trial in open 
court ; or to take from him his property, except by due 
process of law. 

He has a right to believe what he may please ; to worship 
God as he may please ; to express his opinions on all subjects 
freely (but he may be punished for libelous attacks on his 
fellow-men); to print what he may please (with the same 
restriction) ; to assemble with whom he may please, for lawful 
and proper objects ; to petition the state or Federal Govern- 
ment for redress of grievances. 

He has a right to be arrested only for cause mentioned 
in a proper and legal warrant, served by an authorized officer 
of the law, who must show him his authority. 

He has a right to be released on bail, unless charged with 
a capital crime ; and to be produced before the nearest court, 
on a writ of habeas corpus, in order that that court shall decide 
whether his arrest and confinement were properly made, and 
for sufficiently probable cause. 

He has a right to a speedy trial by jury, to be confronted 
with the witnesses against him, to engage a competent 
person for his defense, and to. know at once and definitely, 
before his arrest, what he is charged with. 

He has a right to appeal to the proper court for protection 
to his person and property ; and if the constituted authorities 

480 



SACREDNESS OF PERSONAL RIGHTS. 48 1 

fail to protect him, he has a right to damages for their 
neglect. 

He has a right to be secure in his house against searches 
by officers of the law, except on proper warrant, which must 
first be shown him, and for sufficient cause. 

He has a right to keep and bear arms, but not to keep 
them concealed upon his person. 

He has a right to sue for damages any officer of the law 
who arrests or tries him in an unlawful manner. 

These are the sacred and inalienable rights of every Amer- 
ican citizen, and no constitution or law can deprive him of 
them. They make each citizen secure against unjust or 
usurping officers. They enable the citizen to be safe against 
injustice, or to obtain, by summary and immediate methods, 
redress against unjust attacks. They are possessed by all 
the people — by women and children, as well as by men. 
31 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

TERRITORIES, PUBLIC LANDS, COLONIES, AND MANIFEST 

DESTINY. 

ONE of the greatest and most important of the things 
connected with our great commonwealth is the vast 
quantity of public lands belonging to the government, and in 
the wise and liberal policy under which these lands have 
been thrown open to settlement. 

The Federal Government is the original owner of waste 
or unsettled lands — both those in the territories and those 
which lie within constituted states. It has made a free gift 
to every state of a large quantity of these public lands, to be 
used for the support of public schools and of agricultural 
colleges ; it usually gives to a state all the swamp and over- 
flowed lands within its bounds which were public or congress 
lands at the time of its admission into the Union ; and it 
gives to every actual settler one hundred and sixty acres 
from the surveyed lands, free of cost, except the trifling 
charges for proofs of actual settlement and continued culti- 
vation. It has also, within a few years, given a great 
quantity of land to railroad companies, on condition that 
they should construct and work railroads through these 
lands, and thus open them to settlement. 

The political advantage of our possession of so vast a 
quantity of wnld lands lies in this: that it leaves open for 
many years a broad field for the exertions of the more advent- 
urous, enterprising and restless part of our community. A 
hired laborer to whom the condition of dependence has 
become hateful has no refuge in a thickly settled European 
state except emigration to a distant country, and abandon- 
ment of his own nationality. This ought not to deter a 
European from emigrating; but the American workman is 

482 



ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY. 483 

happy that he need not leave his country, but may, under 
the protection of its flag and laws, settle himself on the 
public lands, and there, with very little capital, achieve inde- 
pendence at least, and perhaps more. He has not to fear 
unequal or strange laws ; for the farthest western territory is 
ruled by congress upon well-defined principles, and becomes a 
state as soon as it has acquired a sufificient population. The 
flag which floats over him commands peace and order, and 
the whole power of the Federal Government is ready to 
make his life and property secure. 

A territory is organized politically by permission of 
congress: Its governor and other executive ofificers and 
judges are appointed by the president ; it has a legislature 
which enacts laws of local application, but congress has the 
right to reject any of these acts. When the people of a 
territory desire to form themselves into a state, they are 
allowed by congress to frame and adopt a constitution. 
This they present to congress for its examination and 
approval ; and congress may, in its discretion, reject the 
instrument, and thus refuse to create the state; and from 
this decision there is no appeal, except to another congress. 
Some territories, as Colorado, have applied several times for 
admission. The people of a territory do not vote for 
president. 

We have been fortunate in territorial acquisitions, for we 
have gained land encumbered with but few inhabitants, and 
well fitted by climate, soil and other natural properties, for 
the prosperous settlement of our own farmers and mechanics. 
In this way not only our laws, but what is of infinitely 
greater importance, our manners and customs, have been 
transferred to and made dominant in these new lands. 

The manifest destiny of the American national life is not 
that we ought to, or could, without hurt to ourselves, annex 
indiscriminately all the states adjoining us, but that it is a 
part of our natural and sound policy to possess ourselves, for 
the use of our own people, of all the waste and desert lands 
lying near our boundaries. 



484 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

Plainly, the annexation of tropical islands like Cuba, San 
Domingo, or the Hawaiian group, does not fall within this 
policy ; for (i) these countries have already a tolerably dense 
population. (2) This population is alien to ours in race, 
and in all its habits and customs as well as in language, (3) 
These islands are not suitable to make homes for our farmers 
and mechanics ; on the contrary, their products are grown 
on estates where a few planters employ, at very low wages, 
great numbers of rude laborers, and need but a very few 
intelligent mechanics — nor could their industries be profit- 
ably pursued in a different way. Finally, the people whom 
we should have to accept with the land, in annexing these 
islands, or the thickly settled parts of Mexico, are not fitted 
by character or training for the duties of American citizen- 
ship ; and, as they occupy the land, there would be but a 
slender possibility of assimilating them to ourselves. But, 
on the other hand, we could not with security to ourselves 
refuse them political rights, if we made them a part of our 
body politic. It is repugnant to our political theory to hold 
territories except with the expectation of their speedily 
becoming states ; because otherwise local government would 
be impaired, and the Federal administration would unduly 
increase its patronage and means of corruption. 

Thus, as we want land and not people, sound policy tells 
us not to annex territory which has already an independent 
and tolerably dense population. But sound policy also 
urges us to cultivate intimate and friendly relations with our 
neighbors ; and this we can do with advantage to ourselves 
as well as to them by establishing with them the utmost 
freedom of commercial exchange. Commerce makes sure 
and faithful allies, and if we were wise enough to establish 
and maintain absolute free trade with Canada and Mexico, 
with the Sandwich islands, with San Domingo and Hayti, 
and with Cuba, we should greatly extend our own commerce 
and should have the use of all these countries without the 
responsibility of ruling them. We should find them willing 
and trustworthy allies in case of war ; and our own course 



OUR NATIONAL DUTY. 485 

toward them would preserve them from the aggressions of 
European powers. In this way we should best fulfill our 
manifest destiny, and what is of still greater importance, meet 
our manifest duty. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

THE natural resources of the United States excel those 
of any other country. It is the mineral garden of the 
world. Its geologic formation favors this varied and rich 
production of minerals. Other countries have larger deposits 
of some one or two minerals, but no country has such large 
deposits of all the most useful minerals. Italy will surpass 
in marble, Australia in copper, while Africa's production of 
ivory has no counter claim at all in the United States. In 
many countries a certain mineral is found in such vast pro- 
portions as to distinguish the country, in which it is found, in 
the trade of the world. But the United States can produce 
minerals sufficient, if- properly worked, to provide the world 
for centuries. Iron, coal, gold, silver, copper, salt and tin, 
are all resting, like kings of industry, in the bowels o^ this 
portion of the earth. In both richness and variety the 
minerals of the United States are unequaled. 

The abundance of gold in California is a proverb through- 
out the world, while it abounds in other sections, as Nevada, 
Colorado and Washington territory. A large deposit of 
gold was discovered in Upper California in 1847, j^^t prior 
to the date of its being ceded to the United States. The 
deposit extends through the valley of the Sacramento, and 
that of the Joaquin, and is two hundred miles in length. In 
its virgin state the gold is here found under three different 
situations. First, it is found in sand and beds of gravel, 
where the small particles are ready for the assay when found, 
so pure are they. In this large deposit the gold is also found 
in granite, which has become decomposed or disintegrated by 
process of time and the action of heat, cold and water. In 
this situation it is found in large quantities. In the third 

486 



THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DEPOSIT. 487 

place it is found intermixed with a dark slaty rock, which 
largely forms the bed of the streams. Here the gold is found 
in the largest pieces, and the wash of the water frequently 
exposes them to sight. The finer particles and scales are 
washed down to the lowest part of the valleys, where they 
can be found in drifts of sand and wood. The wonderful 
richness of this deposit was discovered in 1847, in making a 
mill-race on a small branch of the Sacramento river. It 
created such an excitement that the world bent to the valley 
of gold, and the population ran in two years from fifteen 
thousand in 1848, to ninety-two thousand in 1850. 

This gold deposit is perhaps the richest of the globe ; at 
least it has produced more and with more ease than any 
other lead known. It is only at the small cost of one dollar 
per ton for mining, or washing from the sand or dirt, and 
one-half dollar for hauling, that this precious metal is 
obtained from this deposit. 

Next to this deposit, the richest in the United States, if 
not in the world, is the deposit at the Black Hills. The vein 
of ore here is from ten to twenty feet in thickness, running 
horizontally. Above this bed are porphyry rocks, below it 
slate. A ton of this ore contains from half an ounce to an 
ounce of gold, which is seperated from the ore by stamps, of 
which more than six thousand are working at the Black Hills. 
This mineral belt is but three miles wide and not six miles 
long, but is perhaps the most valuable spot on the earth, as 
it contains gold to the probable value of two billions four 
hundred millions of dollars, and which can be obtained at a 
cost of less than one third of its value. 

In the year 1881 the total production of gold in the United 
States was thirty-four million seven hundred thousand 
dollars, from the deposits of nineteen states and territories, 
and of which more than half of the entire amount came from 
California. From the estimate of Doctor Adolf Soetbeer, 
the great German statistician, the production of the whole 
world exclusive of the United States for the same year was 
only seventy-two million two hundred and eighty-four thou- 



488 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

sand dollars, which gives the showing that the production of 
the whole world outside of the United States is only about 
twice the amount of this country. From the organization of 
the United States mint in 1793 until 1882 the production in 
the United States amounted to one billion one hundred and 
seventy-six million thirty-three thousand nine hundred and 
fifty-four dollars and forty-five cents. This is a showing of 
splendid proportions, and gives an idea of the important 
place held by the United States in the mining interests, and 
therefore in the monetary systems, of the world. 

The production of silver in the United States is for any 
series of years far heavier than that of gold. The silver 
mines were not discovered until 1858, though for three years 
there had been a small annual production. The amount 
produced in 1858 was five hundred thousand dollars, and 
from the year 1866 the increase has been steady and reliable 
until in 1881 it reached forty-three million dollars, or eleven 
million dollars more than the production of gold for the 
same year. In the whole world, exclusive of the United 
States, the silver deposit worked in 1881, according to 
Doctor Soetbeer, amounted only to forty-four million five 
hundred and forty-three thousand dollars, which exhibits the 
production as almost as heavy as the whole remainder of the 
globe. Since their establishment in 1793 the mints of the 
United States have received silver, from domestic production, 
amounting to two hundred and fifty-six million eight hun- 
dred and sixty thousand dollars, most of which come from 
the mines of Nevada. The state classing next in the pro- 
duction, as now worked, is Colorado ; while Utah and Cali- 
fornia range third and fourth. In a little more than twenty 
years this natural resource has developed, under the genius 
of American enterprise, into one of the greatest and most 
useful industries of the country. 

The mining for this ore has been the romance of immense 
wealth written in the silver-veined lines of splendor in 
mountain and sand-bar. It is part of the great story of the 



COPPER AND LEAD DISTRICT. 489 

vast measure of wealth hid in the soil and rock of the United 
States, and of which not one half has been told. 

The purest and best copper in the world is produced in 
the United States, on the shores of Lake Superior. Here 
the mines are so rich and pure that the native metal has 
been cut out in great masses, weighing as high as one hun- 
dred and fifty tons of almost unadulterated copper. These 
mines are in their infancy, yet they produce over two thou- 
sand tons of copper in a single year. 

In geologic formations the beds showing the remains of 
animals of the earliest period, contain large deposits of 
copper. It seems from the formation to which it belongs 
that it was formed by heat under certain chemical conditions 
of gaseous pressure. Where these peculiar conditions were 
the strongest, the metal was created in immense quantities. 
This has made the Lake Superior region the most extraordi- 
nary in the world for its copper. It is here found in vertical 
seams in the sand-stone. From this region one large mass 
has been taken out, the weight of which was two hundred 
tons. It was forty feet long, six feet wide, and sixteen 
inches in thickness. The copper of this territory is largely 
spotted with silver, nearly one half per cent of that metal 
being found in it. This run of copper of itself is quite 
enough to last the country for centuries to come. It was 
already worked by the Mound Builders. 

New York and Indiana contain fair deposits of copper. 
In Tennessee and North Carolina the mines are well worked, 
and are largely productive. While it runs in sections begin- 
ning in New Mexico and extending north, through the 
western mountains it is found in greater richness. 

The great lead district, occupying the northwestern 
portion of Illinois and the adjoining parts of Wisconsin and 
Iowa, is, for richness, unsurpassed on the globe. The ship- 
ments from this district average more than fifty million 
pounds annually. This is a rare deposit, as the lead is 
mostly in the pure state of the metal; elsewhere it is 
generally in combination with other ores, mostly sulphur. 



490 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The extent of the deposit here is co-extensive with the Hme- 
stone cHff, which reaches through Missouri, Illinois, Iowa 
and Wisconsin. A portion of this deposit in Missouri, was 
discovered as early as 1720, by Francis Renault and M. 
LaMotte; and the LaMotte mine is still worked. This 
deposit is eighty-seven miles from east to west, and fifty-four 
miles from north to south, and is well nigh inexhaustible, as 
there is scarcely a square mile in which lead is not found. 
The digging is seldom made over thirty feet deep, for the 
ore is so abundant that a new spot is chosen rather than 
meet the expense of deeper mining. From a small spot not 
exceeding fifty yards square, three million pounds of ore 
have been raised. In one mine two men raise each two 
thousand pounds a day. In one deposit two men raised 
sixteen thousand pounds in a day. Veins of considerable 
extent occur in Maine and through several of the New 
England states ; and is more or less abundant in over one 
half the states. 

The world could supply its demands for this ore from the 
United States for all time, and could scarcely exhaust the 
treasure. It is becoming an important industry for the 
country. In the year 1882 the United States exported lead 
in the raw material, and manufactured, to the value of one 
hundred and seventy-eight thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-nine dollars. As an export this increased over four 
times in a single year. 

Iron, the most useful of all the American minerals, is the 
most widely diffused throughout the country. About two 
thirds of the states are richly supplied with this valuable ore. 
The entire yield for 1881 was the prodigous amount of seven 
million two hundred and fifty-six thousand six hundred and 
eighty-four tons. Pennsylvania produced one third of this 
vast yield, Ohio ranking next in order. Besides this there is 
an annual production of immense quantity of steel ingots. 
The production of iron ore for the whole world for 1881 was 
over twenty-four million tons ; by which it is shown that the 
iron production of the United States is more than one fourth 



GREAT MISSOURI IRON MOUNTAINS. 49I 

as great as that of the entire iron producing portion of the 
globe. When the iron mountains of Missouri are once 
strongly worked, that state will furnish as much iron as any 
country of the globe. Indeed, it is fair to conjecture that 
this section alone could supply the whole world with iron 
for at least a century, so great is the supply. 

This iron ore provides over one thousand establishments 
in the country with the material for the manufacture of steel 
and iron ; these employing about one hundred and forty-five 
thousand men to use up the material. The United States 
exported in 1823, iron goods to the value of ninety-seven 
thousand two hundred and seventy-one dollars, and in 1882 
to the value of seventeen million five hundred and fifty-one 
thousand three hundred and twenty-two dollars. In former 
years most all iron goods used in the United States were 
imported from England ; this importation has been reduced 
to a minimum, and under a growing industry of the iron 
production it is hoped will cease altogether. 

Iron ore is perhaps the most generally used of all Ameri- 
can minerals. It goes into the manufacture of more than 
nine tenths of all the industrial articles of the country, while 
of late years it is becoming a substitute for wood in house 
and ship building, and the end seems not yet. 

The greatest mineral resource of the United States is 
coal, and it is mined in greater quantity than any other 
mineral. The great anthracite bed in eastern Pennsylvania 
produces and sends to market more than eight million tons 
annually. In its geologic formation coal necessitated low 
and marshy sections. A heavily charged air, mostly of car- 
bonic acid gas, produced vegetable growth of loose structure 
and gigantic size. Most of the coal was made from the fern 
family of plants. This growth of plant life falling year after 
year, largely charged with carbon, and kept moist by the 
marshy beds of soil, in long periods of time produced a heat 
which gradually opened the great coal-making period. Then 
came the period of making mountains, in which these low 
marshy beds were thrown and torn in endless confusion. 



492 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

In this way was produced the nearly two hundred thousand 
square miles of workable coal in the United States. 

A great bed of bituminous coal, commencing in the west 
slope of the Alleghany mountains in Pennsylvania, extends 
in a wide belt westward and south. In the west, Iowa, Mis- 
souri and Illinois cover an immense tract of bituminous coal. 
The bituminous coal in western Pennsylvania, near Pitts- 
burgh, is the greatest bed of that quality in the world. It 
lays in a bed about five feet thick in the hills adjoining the 
city, and is obtained by driving right into the hill. As the 
bed of coal is nearly level, wagons are easily drawn to the 
mouth of the mine, and then run in on an incline. From 
this point one small engine will take four or five hundred 
tons daily to the shipping point. The coal is received in 
flat-bottomed barges, each containing five hundred tons, and 
when ten of those barges are filled, they are taken in tow 
by a small steamer, and run down the river as far as New 
Orleans, a distance of two thousand miles, at a transit cost 
of only two cents per ton for six hundred miles, which is 
probably the cheapest transportation in the world. 

In the year 1881 the coal production of the United 
States was seventy-six million two hundred and twenty-one 
thousand nine hundred and thirty-four tons, of which Penn- 
sylvania gave considerable more than half, Ohio and Illinois 
ranking second and third. England produces in one year 
over one hundred and thirty-three million tons, and the 
whole world, including England and the United States, two 
hundred and ninety-seven million six hundred and ninety- 
seven thousand five hundred and eighty tons. While the 
production of England is nearly twice that of the United 
States, her beds of coal are inferior, but are better worked. 

Some very rich zinc mines have been worked in New 
Jersey; this mineral is also found largely mixed with the 
lead ore of Missouri, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. What is 
peculiar about this ore is that it does not belong to any 
geologic age, but occurs in rocks of all ages, and is associ- 
ated generally with ores of lead, copper, tin, iron and silver. 



THE SALINE SPRINGS. 493 

The products of the zinc mines of Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey is upwards of ten thousand tons. 

Tin has, within the last few years, been mined in the New 
England States, and to a limited extent in other sections. 
There are evidences which may lead to the discovery of 
heavy tin deposits. The principal tin mines of the world 
are those of England. The Cornwall mines were worked as 
early as the fifth century before Christ. The Phoenicians 
traded with the Britons for this metal at that early day, and 
the supply is not exhausted yet. Nearly thirty centuries 
ago the Britons carried the tin from the Cornwall mines on 
horseback to the market, requiring thirty days to make the 
outward trip. For thirty centuries these mines have known 
the pick of the miner, and still it is bringing out the metal. 
Should such fertile deposits be discovered in the United 
States, it will contribute greatly to the mineral wealth of the 
country, and equally to the production of industry. 

Nickel is worked from deposits in Pennsylvania, New 
York and Missouri. It is mostly found with copper or 
meteoric iron. It is a valuable mineral for the manufacture 
of philosophical instruments, as it does not rust or oxydize. 
It is considered in China as worth one fourth its weight of 
silver, and is not allowed to be carried out of the empire. 
Articles are now plated with nickel by galvanic processes, 
and this will rapidly run it up in importance and value. 

Saline springs, lakes and undercurrents are abundant in 
Texas, Michigan, New York, New Mexico, California and 
Utah. Utah could furnish salt enough for all the world for 
all time. The Salt Lake in Utah is the finest salt body on 
the globe. It has an area of two thousand square miles, and 
is remarkable for its extent, considering that it is situated 
toward the summit of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation 
of four thousand two hundred feet above the sea. The 
most remarkable salt deposits are those of Poland, which 
have been worked for over six hundred years. The deep 
subterranean regions are excavated into houses, chapels, and 
other ornamental forms, the roof being supported by pillars 



494 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE, 

of salt, and when illuminated by torches and lamps they are 
objects of great splendor. The salt beds of the United 
States are mostly associated with gypsum, while the brines 
come from a red sandstone below the coal formation. The 
greater part of the salt manufactured in this country is 
obtained by evaporation from salt springs. Those of Salina 
and Syracuse are well known. At these springs a bushel of 
salt is obtained from every forty gallons. To obtain the 
brine, wells from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet deep 
are sunk by boring; it is then raised by machinery, carried 
by troughs to the boilers, which are large iron kettles set in 
brickwork, and there evaporated by heat. As soon as the 
water boils the impurities are removed from the surface by 
ladles. The salt is deposited, the water is run off, and the 
salt carried away to drain. Some of the brine is also evap- 
orated by exposure to the sun in broad shallow vats. The 
salt industry is undeveloped yet in the United States, the 
production for 1880 only amounting to four million eight 
hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and thirty-six 
dollars, but there is no reason why the country should not 
export annually an amount equal to one fourth the consump- 
tion of the world. 

Petroleum is quite a resource of Pennsylvania, and to 
some extent of Ohio. It has passed through years of wild 
speculation, and its production is now likely to settle down 
into a reliable industry. The oil is generally reached by 
boring one thousand three hundred feet deep. For about 
five hundred feet the bore is made five inches in diameter, 
and lined with a five-inch wrought iron pipe. The object of 
this is to keep out water, which is found down to that depth. 
Beyond five hundred feet the bore is made two inches in 
diameter. When oil is reached, if it does not flow freely, a 
charge of dynamite is exploded at the bottom of the bore, 
which often has the desired effect ; a pump is then intro- 
duced, worked with wooden rods one and one fourth inches 
in diameter. Some of the wells flow naturally to the surface, 
and from others a vehement rush of gas takes place. This 



PRODIGIOUS SUPPLY OF BUILDING STONE. 495 

gas is now extensively utilized, and is effective in the pro- 
duction of light and heat ; many towns bordering on the oil 
regions are illuminated by it. The pressure is so great that 
a pipe about an inch in diameter will supply a furnace with 
sufficient heat, which is intense and of the purest white, and 
without a particle of smoke. 

Pennsylvania has the largest deposit of this oil, and the 
production in that state reached in 1880 a hundred and a 
half million gallons. West Virginia and Ohio rank second 
and third. The entire production for that year was nearly 
two hundred millions of gallons. There was exported from 
the United States in 1882 fifty-one million two hundred 
and thirty-two thousand seven hundred and six gallons after 
the home demand was met. 

Almost every state has its building stone, and in a great 
many places there is fine monumental stone. New England 
granite, Kentucky marble, Pennsylvania bluestone, the sand- 
stone and limestone of the western states, are good in quality 
and abundant in quantity. In Kansas is a stone used for 
building purposes which is so soft before exposed to the 
light and air that in the quarry it is easily cut and sawed in 
any shape, but when in the light it gradually hardens and 
deepens in color, and becomes the most desirable stone for 
architectural purposes. The buildings put up with this stone 
are beautiful and substantial. The limestone formations of 
the Mississippi valley, and the sandstone groups, afford an 
inexhaustible supply of the finest stone. The utility of our 
underground wealth is nowhere more evident than here. 
Hardly a public temple or private building but stone, granite 
or marble from some quarry is brought into requisition. 
With the abandonment of wood, our iron mines and stone 
quarries would furnish abundant material for all classes and 
grades of building, and the structures, like the material, 
would stand all ravages of time and tests of the seasons. In 
the day when the United States shall double its population, 
the prodigious use of this underground provision for a high 
civilization will be incalculable. 



496 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

It is one of the solid, growing industries of the country, 
and is one of the most valuable. It is not hard to estimate 
the embarrassment of American civilization in case of a 
limited supply of stone and marble ; it would be disastrous 
to a solid form of architecture. 

One of the chief beauties and distinctions of the United 
States is the timber, both in quality and variety. The Ameri- 
can forest is perhaps unexcelled on the globe. The extensive 
pineries of the north and northwest ; the cedar and cypress of 
the south ; the drooping elm, graceful beech, symmetrical 
sugar tree, defiant hickory, giant oak, massive ash, stately 
poplar, robust walnut, and red-hued cherry, which abound in 
the middle latitude from east to west ; the chestnut of the 
mountain and the cotton-wood of the plains, all form the 
most varied and extensive production of wood to be found 
in the world. Among these is the hard fibre and durable 
grain, suitable for lasting structures; and the close, fine 
grain adapted to a finish of the finest surface ; and among 
them also is the tough fibre to furnish material for bent tools 
and machinery. Not a single line of manufacturing needing 
wood can be at a loss for supplies in this country ; so that 
the forests of the United States abound in the capabilities of 
the most varied industries, and the possibilities it holds for 
future manufacturing growth are practically unlimited. 

The American wood-land exhibits the beauty and glory of 
landscape variety in a more extensive way than any other 
country. The mountain ledge, the hill slope, the river bank 
and the wooded level, with all the varied changes and fresh 
surprises, are only the groundwork of the painting of nature 
in the American forest. An autumn in an American wood- 
land is better than a year in the temples of Rome. 

From this brief review of the natural resources of the 
country, it will be concluded that they form the basis of 
American wealth and continued prosperity. The hill, tim- 
ber-crested above, rock-bound, iron-footed, marble-veined, 
gold-lined beneath, this hill is the corner stone for the great 



GREATNESS OF THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH. 497 

temple for American industry and wealth — the temple where 
the whole world comes to pay compliment to the greatness 
of the American commonwealth. 
33 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

AMERICAN PRODUCTION. 

AGRICULTURE is the staple pursuit of the people of 
^ the United States, and agricultural products are the 
principal articles of export. The first exports of the early- 
colonists were the natural products of the forest : furs, lumber, 
pitch and tar ; pot and pearl ashes, with some cattle and 
provisions, constituted the chief articles of trade from the 
northern provinces in the early part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury ; but rice and tobacco had even then become important 
items of exportation from the southern colonies. At a late 
period, wheat became the great staple of the middle and 
western states, and cotton that of the more tropical sections 
of the country. Flax and hemp thrive, particularly in the 
rich soil of Kentucky and Missouri. Maize, being suited to 
a great variety of soils and situations, is so universally culti- 
vated, as to have received the name of " corn " as a distinct- 
ive appellation. Oats for horses, and rye for distillation, 
are the prevalent species of grain in the northern states, 
while in the extreme south the sugar cane is found to flourish, 
and to supply almost all the demand for this article for home 
consumption. Grapes for wine, and beets for sugar, are 
articles of prospective culture, regarding the value of which 
sanguine expectations are entertained. Cotton, the great 
staple of the United States, is raised in small quantities in 
Virginia and Kentucky, but is chiefly produced in the coun- 
try farther south. It is the produce of the herbacious or 
annual cotton plant, and is of two kinds, the Sea Island or 
long staple, and the upland, or short staple. The former, 
which is of a superior quality, is grown chiefly in the Caro- 
linas and Georgia, on the Atlantic coast, and in some parts 
of Texas. Cotton was first exported in small quantities in 

498 



HEAVY GRAIN PRODUCTION. 499 

1790 : since then its culture has become enormous. Tobacco 
has been the staple of Virginia and Maryland since their first 
settlement, and is also extensively grown in Kentucky, Ohio, 
Missouri, and other states ; besides the quantities required for 
domestic use, large amounts are exported. The sugar-cane 
is cultivated with success in Louisiana, Florida and Texas. 
Rice has been so successful, that, in addition to supplying 
the home consumption, it affords an annual surplus for the 
purposes of commerce. Indigo was formerly produced in 
large quantities in the Carolinas and Georgia, but since the 
introduction of cotton, the cultivation of this plant has 
almost ceased. 

Corn takes precedence in the scale of products of the soil, 
and may be regarded usually as a sure crop in almost every 
portion of the land. The first successful attempt to cultivate 
this grain in the present territory of the United States, was 
made in the valley of the James river, Virginia, in 1608. The 
corn production of the United States for 1880, was one 
billion seven hundred and fifty-four million eight hundred 
and sixty-one thousand five hundred and thirty-five bushels: 
which was three times what it was thirty years before. 
Illinois produced the largest amount, while Iowa and Mis- 
souri ranked second and third. In 1880, twenty-eight 
million eight hundred and forty-five thousand eight hundred 
and thirty bushels of corn were exported. 

Wheat is the most staple product of the world, and 
second in importance in the United States. It has been but 
a few years that this grain has furnished an export for the 
United States, yet at the London exhibition very little 
wheat was exhibited equal to that of this country. In lati- 
tudes where the soil and climate are favorable, it is the most 
desirable crop, both on account of its use for food, and for 
its safety and convenience for exportation. Its production 
has not yet reached one half that of corn, being for the year 
1880, four hundred and fifty-nine million four hundred and 
seventy-nine thousand five hundred and five bushels ; of 
which about one fourth was exported in the grain and flour 



500 . THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

to the estimate of thirty-six million three hundred and 
seventy-five thousand and fifty-five dollars. 

Rice is the chief food for about one third of the human 
race, and is cultivated in this country only in the southern 
states. It was introduced in Virginia in 1647, by Sir William 
Berkeley. The yield varies from twenty to sixty bushels per 
acre. The Carolina rice was awarded a prize medal at the 
London Industrial Exposition. South Carolina is the largest 
rice producing state, with Georgia and Louisiana ranking 
next. The production for the year 1880 was one hundred 
and ten million one hundred and thirty-one thousand three 
hundred and seventy-three pounds. There is no quantity of 
rice yet exported to other lands. 

In our national economy the potato is of greater impor- 
tance than rice, as it is universally used. It is regarded of 
such prime value as an economical food that many poor 
families make it a substitute for wheat. It is found in a 
wild state in the warmer climes. It was not until the middle 
of the seventeenth century that it became known as an article 
of food either in the United States or Britain. It is produc- 
tive in all sections outside of the southern states. The yield 
is sometimes enormous, reaching four hundred bushels to 
the acre. The crop for 1880 reached nearly one hundred 
and seventy million bushels, of which less than one per cent 
was exported. With the enormous yield of this staple 
article, its ease of transportation and fair price, it is pros- 
pectively one of the greatest agricultural industries of the 
country. The time is not distant when a hundred million 
bushels will be annually transported to other lands, for 
under a proper protective policy, and with the superior 
grade of the American article, the foreign demand would be 
almost unlimited. 

The sweet potato, a native of the Indies, is raised in very 
limited quantities throughout the entire United States. It 
is regarded rather as a luxury than a staple, hence its small 
production. The best quality is raised in the southern 



HOME FOR THE TOBACCO AND COTTON PLANT. 50I 

states. The production of 1880 was only about forty-one 
million bushels. 

Tobacco was found growing in the American soil when 
first visited by the European. Columbus was invited on the 
island of Cuba, in 1492, to take a cigar. Previous to 1775, 
nearly all the European countries were supplied from this 
country, so it was one of the best paying products. But 
now it is cultivated throughout the world. There were 
raised in 1880, four hundred and seventy-two million six 
hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine 
pounds, Kentucky producing over one fourth of the entire 
amount. The revenue derived the same year from this 
product, under the government, was thirty-eight million 
eight hundred and seventy thousand one hundred and 
seventy dollars. The exports for the same year amounted 
to eighteen million four hundred and forty-two thousand 
two hundred and seventy-three dollars. 

The production of sugar and molasses is heavy for the 
conditions of the country, the sugar-cane plant being con- 
fined entirely to the south. In most parts of Louisiana it 
yields three crops from one planting, the average quantity 
of sugar produced from an acre averaging about one thou- 
sand pounds. In some of the northern and western states 
the production of sugar and molasses from the maple is 
quite large, it being the finest flavored molasses produced in 
the country. In the manufacture of maple sugar New York 
state takes the lead, with a yield of over ten millions of 
pounds, the production for the whole country reaching to 
forty millions of pounds annually. The production of maple 
molasses approaches closely to two millions of gallons. The 
amount of sugar manufactured from the sugar cane is over 
three hundred and two millions of pounds annually, while 
the amount of cane molasses manufactured yearly is over 
sixteen millions of gallons, and the amount of sorghum 
molasses is somewhat more than half of this. 

The cotton plant, which administers so bountifully to the 
wants of man, and to the wealth and economy of countries 



502 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

producing it, stands preeminent in the United States, both 
as regards its superior staple and the degree of perfection it 
has attained. It has been a plant of cultivation through 
known time. Columbus found it used by the Indians of 
Cuba ; Cortez, by those of Mexico; Pizarro, by the Incas of 
Peru, and Vaca, by the natives of California. It is not 
known when it was introduced into American agriculture. 
The amount raised in the United States previous to the 
introduction of the cotton gin was inconsiderable, but since 
that period there is probably nothing recorded in the history 
of industry that would compare with its subsequent increase. 
The average yield is about five hundred pounds to the acre. 
Alabama now occupies the first place as a cotton-bearing 
state. In Virginia the cotton crop has rapidly diminished, 
while for the last few years Georgia has been producing 
nearly equal to Alabama, and one year a very little surpass- 
ing it. The total crop for 1882 was about five and a half 
million bales. The cotton exported in 1882, both raw and 
manufactured, amounted to over two millions of dollars, 
while the imported cotton manufactured goods were esti- 
mated at thirty-four million three hundred and fifty-four 
thousand two hundred and ninety-two dollars. 

Besides these leading staple productions of the soil of 
the United States, which constitute the chief agricultural 
industry of the country, there are many products raised to a 
limited extent. The following table will show their yield 
for the year 1882: 

Oats bushels, $407,858,999 

Harley " 44,113,495 

Rye " 19,831,595 

Buckwheat " 11,817,327 

Clover Seed " 100,000,000 

Flaxseed " 725,000 

Hops pounds, 26,546,378 

Within the last few years the tropical fruit industry has 
been pushed into a rivalry with the noted fruit regions of 
the Old World. Oranges, bananas, pine apples and dates 



THE FLORIDA ORANGE. 503 

are being raised in quantities, and promise to became quite 
an industry. The Florida orange is preferred to those 
raised in the noted groves of the Mediterranean. 

In the production of cattle of all kinds, the United States 
has grown rapidly. In home consumption and exportation 
the record is very complimentary to American genius and 
industry. The cattle men of the United States are the 
kings of the earth. 

The number of horses in the country in 1880 was ten 
million three hundred and fifty-seven thousand four hundred 
and eighty-eight. Illinois held about one tenth of the whole 
number; so that this state may be regarded as the great 
horse-raising state of the union. It is fair to suppose that 
the state ships out, to eastern and foreign markets, about 
one hundred thousand annually. 

There were one million eight hundred and twelve thou- 
sand eight hundred and eight mules in the country in 1880, 
of which Missouri held the largest number. There has been 
but little gain in the raising of mules for twenty years, the 
number being almost as great at that time. The number 
exported in 1882 being two thousand six hundred and 
thirty-two. 

In 1880 there were in the United States twelve million 
four hundred aad forty-three thousand one hundred and 
twenty milk cows, of which the state of New York held 
more than one million. Illinois, with its surpassing advan- 
tages for raising and advantageous markets for products, had 
less than nine hundred thousand. The production of milk 
was five hundred and thirty million one hundred and twenty- 
nine thousand seven hundred and fifty-five gallons. The 
amount of butter was seven hundred and seventy-seven 
million two hundred and fifty thousand two hundred and 
eighty-seven pounds, of which New York furnished one 
hundred and eleven million nine hundred and twenty-two 
thousand four hundred and twenty-three pounds, with 
Pennsylvania and Ohio ranking second and third. The man- 
ufacture of cheese reached twenty-seven million two hundred 



504 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

and seventy-two thousand four hundred and eighty-nine 
pounds, of which New York and Cahfornia produced the 
most. The exportation of butter in 1882 was two million 
eight hundred and sixty-four thousand five hundred and 
seventy dollars; that of cheese was fourteen million fifty- 
eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-five dollars. 

In 1880 there were nine hundred and ninety-three thou- 
sand eight hundred and forty-one work oxen in the United 
States, of which Alabama had the largest number. This is 
more than a milhon under the number in the country in 
i860; at that time there were over two million. 

In 1880 the number of beef cattle was given at twenty- 
two million four hundred and eighty-eight thousand five 
hundred and fifty, of which Texas had over three million, 
with Iowa and Illinois ranking second and third. The 
number exported in 1882 was one hundred and eight thou- 
sand one hundred and ten ; while with the ease and cheap- 
ness with which cattle can be raised in the west the number 
should have been a million a year. The beef exported in 
1882 amounted to a little over one hundred and five million 
pounds, against nearly one hundred and fifty million pounds 
in 1 88 1. This was somewhat the result of the foreign cry 
against American meats, which was raised by European 
dealers. 

There were on the farms of the United States in 1880, 
forty-seven million six hundred and eighty-one thousand 
seven hundred hogs, of which Iowa had the largest number, 
closely followed by Illinois, with Missouri, Indiana and Ohio 
ranking next in order. This is nearly double the number 
estimated in i860. The number exported in 1882 was 
thirty-six thousand three hundred and sixty-eight, against 
seventy-seven thousand four hundred and fifty-six in 1881. 
The cause of the decline is the same as that in the case of 
cattle. The pork exported in 1882 amounted to a little 
over four hundred and sixty million pounds, against about 
seven hundred and fifty million pounds in 1881. The lard 
exported in 1882 was two hundred and fifty million three 



GROWTH OF MANUFACTURING. 505 

hundred and sixty-seven thousand seven hundred and forty- 
pounds; in 1 88 1 it amounted to nearly four hundred miUion 
pounds. 

The sheep in the country in 1880 amounted to thirty-five 
miUion one hundred and ninety-two thousand and seventy- 
four, of which Ohio and California had the largest number, 
with Texas, New Mexico and Michigan ranking next. The 
exportation of sheep in 1882 amounted to one hundred and 
thirty-nine thousand six hundred and seventy-six head, while 
in 1 88 1 the number was one hundred and seventy-nine 
thousand nine hundred and nineteen. 

The mutton exported in 1882 amounted to one million 
three hundred and seventy-three thousand three hundred and 
eighty-four pounds, against three million three hundred and 
eighty thousand one hundred and forty-seven pounds in 1881. 

The hay produced in 1880 amounted to thirty-five million 
two hundred and five thousand seven hundred and twelve 
tons, twice what the production was in the year i860. And 
it is somewhat surprising that New York furnished over five 
million tons of this amount, Iowa coming next with three 
and a half million. 

The manufacturing production of this country is still in 
its beginning, yet the growth is rapid. The states most 
extensively engaged in manufacturing are New York, Penn- 
'sylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Connecticut. Rhode 
Island, the smallest state in the Union, has the greatest 
number of persons employed in manufactures in proportion 
to its population ; Connecticut stands next. 

The three great staple manufactures are cotton, woolens 
and iron. In the production of cotton goods this country is 
surpassed only by Britain. These manufactures are distrib- 
uted through all the states and territories. There were in 1880 
nearly two hundred and fifty-four thousand manufactures in 
the United States. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massa- 
chusetts and Illinois now have, in the order given, the largest 
number of these establishments. In all these together there 
is a capital invested of nearly three billion dollars. The 



506 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

number of persons employed reaches nearly three million, 
about one seventeenth of the population of the country. The 
joint value of the products reaches over five billion dollars ; 
the amount paid out in wages nearly one billion dollars. 

The manufacturing industries are bound to develop them- 
selves wonderfully. The low cost of material, the demand 
for manufactured goods, and the great production of labor 
saving machinery determine this. The ample steam and 
water power are made extensively available by skillful 
machinists for the production of great industries. The con- 
struction of hydraulic machinery, of stationary and locomo- 
tive steam-engines, and all the machinery used in mines, mills, 
furnaces, forges, shops and factories, in constructing roads, 
bridges and railways, necessitate an immense amount of 
inventive energy, to be directed to the mechanical demands 
of the age. 

The great distinction of inventing the sewing machine 
belongs to America. It is an invention of the greatest prac- 
tical importance. The manufacture of the machine has 
become one of the great industries of the land. 

Though the honor of inventing the threshing machine 
belongs to the Scotch mind, the idea of its great practical 
use first wholly seized the American mind. In 1853 ^ strange 
instrument, invented by Obed Hussey, of Ohio, it was said, 
" Cradled wheat as fast as eight persons could bind it." 
Within the brief period since this date, inventions and 
improvements in machinery have wrought a complete revolu- 
tion in the dispatch and economy of industrial production. 
Fairs and exhibitions have greatly stimulated this spirit of 
invention ; and the " Great Exhibition of 185 1," placed Amer- 
ican implements for farm uses at the head of the world. 

The people of the United States are not professedly a 
manufacturing people. The country is too large yet for the 
population, there are too many departments of productive 
industry, and labor is too high. The people, moreover, are 
too much averse to routine and fixed positions to make the 
best use of their mechanical powers. In Europe, restrictions 



A PECULIAR NATIONAL TRAIT. 507 

to certain trades amount almost to caste, and in Asia quite. 
The father's employment becomes that of the son, and so 
on, generation after generation. The boy sees little but his 
father's trade, knows little else. He begins to learn it by 
observation as soon as he is capable of intelligent percep- 
tion. He grows up with fellow-craftsmen, hears hardly any- 
thing else, and at a lawful age sits down to his seven-years' 
trade as a matter of course. England is in this way turned 
into one vast workshop. Hence, also, the great skill in 
manufacturing costly fabrics acquired in France, Belgium, 
Germany and Thibet. 

But it is quite otherwise in America. Here, if the boy 
does not like the trade of his father (and he is pretty sure 
not to like it), he immediately looks for something else ; and 
hereditary skill and experience are very generally lost. If 
he does not take a fancy to the occupation he has chosen, 
he dashes off and tries something else. Then there is a 
species of personal ambition and pride which is quite Amer- 
ican ; and though it may lead to good results in some 
instances, it is very likely to be injurious. Every child 
expects to rise higher than his parents. He knows he 
has better opportunities for education. He wishes a more 
elevated, or at least a more lucrative employment. He 
has no idea, therefore, of settling down on the old home- 
stead and making a life-drudgery of his father's trade. He 
will be off for the West, or to the city, or to the gold-fields 
of California, He has an idea that he may be in the legisla- 
ture or congress yet ; that he shall come back a governor or 
president, to visit his parents, and confer honor upon them 
in their old age. At least, he expects to become a great 
merchant and a millionaire, a lawyer, minister, doctor, 
school-teacher, or politician, and in some way rise to distinc- 
tion and usefulness, or, at the very worst, get his living by 
his wits. 

This is likely to go on at the expense of solid virtue and the 
patient development of our industries. If young men would 



508 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

be more content jvith the industrial avocations to which 
they are suited, and which the country needs, there would 
be more stability, progress and happiness, and a much 
stronger development of the industrial wealth of the nation. 



CHAPTER L. 

DEVELOPMENT. 

THE story of the nation's development reads like a 
romance. It is the strangest thing in history. The 
first thing that appears strange about our country's develop- 
rfient is the growth of population. In 1775 it was only 
three million, of which Virginia had about one fourth. The 
immense capabilities of the new country soon invited enter- 
prise from the old world. There was in the idea of liberty, 
as it had been fostered, a charm, which the aristocratic 
governments of Europe could in no way counteract. 

In 1800 the population was five million three hundred 
and five thousand nine hundred and twenty-five; in 1810, 
seven million two hundred and thirty-nine thousand eight 
hundred and fifteen. By i860 the rapid increase carried the 
population to thirty-one million four hundred and forty-three 
thousand three hundred and twenty-two. By 1880 the 
population made an immense spring to fifty million one 
hundred and fifty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty- 
three, making a per cent of increase from 1870 to 1880 of 
thirty and eight one-hundreths. There is nothing in the 
settlement of the world to compare with this rate of 
progress, yet with the present population the inhabitants to 
the square mile are but thirteen, while the number to the 
square mile in Belgium reaches four hundred and eighty-one. 

This large and rapidly increasing population is about two 
thirds foreign birth and foreign descent. The immigration 
has at all times been large. Prior to 1820 no statistics of 
immigration were kept, but since that year the number h^as 
been annually growing, with the exception of a falling off 
here and there, mostly during the war. In 1882 the number 
of immigrants was not much short of one miUion. Since 

509 



5IO THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

1820 England and Ireland have contributed about four 
million, and Germany a little over three million. The native 
American stock, amounting to about twelve million, may be 
found pervading all our communities, and mingling with all 
classes of immigrants in active business relations, organizing 
American institutions, and developing the resources of the 
great country. 

The immigrants have generally been of the industrial 
classes. Labor, and not capital, has been the greatest 
contribution from the Old to the New World. This has 
been a blessing, as it gives a wonderful degree of energy 
and enterprise to the growth of the country, and rapidly 
brought out the resources of the ground. 

The employments of the foreign-born population strik- 
ingly indicate their habits of thought and feehng, and the 
character of their influence upon American industry and 
society. 

Of, say, two millions, eight hundred and seventy-two 
thousand three hundred and seventeen are laborers; seven 
hundred and sixty-four thousand eight hundred and thirty- 
seven, farmers ; four hundred and seven thousand five hun- 
dred and twenty-four, mechanics ; two hundred and thirty- 
one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, merchants; 
forty-nine thousand four hundred and ninety-four, servants; 
thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven, miners; 
twenty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty-four, mariners ; 
eleven thousand five hundred and fifty-seven, weavers and 
spinners ; five thousand two hundred and forty-six, seam- 
stresses and milliners ; seven thousand one hundred and nine, 
physicians ; four thousand three hundred and twenty-six, 
clergymen ; three thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, 
clerks; three thousand six hundred and thirty-four, tailors; 
three thousand four hundred and seventy-four, shoemakers; 
three thousand one hundred and twenty, manufacturers; two 
thousand six hundred and seventy-six, lawyers ; two thousand 
four hundred and ninety, artists ; two thousand three hundred 
and ten, masons; two thousand and sixteen, engineers; one 



THE CENTRE OF POPULATION. 511 

thousand five hundred and twenty-eight, teachers ; one thou- 
sand two hundred and seventy-two, bakers; nine hundred 
and forty-five, butchers; seven hundred and twenty-nine, 
musicians; seven hundred and five, printers; six hundred 
and forty-seven, painters ; six hundred and thirty-one, 
millers ; five hundred and eighty-eight, actors. 

These figures show that the people were used to work in 
the Old World, and that they came here to work. 

The centre of population of a country is defined to be the 
point at which equilibrium would be reached were the country 
taken as a plane surface, itself without weight, and loaded 
with its inhabitants, in number and position as they are 
found at the period under consideration, each individual 
being assumed to be of the same gravity as every other, and 
consequently to exert pressure on the pivotal point directly 
, proportioned to his distance therefrom. In short it is the 
centre of gravity of the population of the country. Deter- 
mining by this definition, the centre of the population of the 
United States in 1880 was eight miles southwest from the 
heart of the city of Cincinnati. This places it in Kentucky, 
one mile from the Ohio river, and one and a half miles 
southeast of the village of Taylorville. 

This centre of population is slowly moving westward, 
like the great star of American Empire. It will gradually 
push on, and in another quarter of a century will rest 
somewhere not far from the Mississippi river, and likely 
somewhat farther north than at present. 

With all the varied tendencies of this rapidly increasing 
population, and under the prestige of a mighty past, and the 
blaze of a mighty hope, with all the vitalizing forces it com- 
mands, this fifty million one hundred and fifty-five thousand 
seven hundred and eighty-three American people are now 
working out the great destiny of American Civilization, and 
with marvelous rapidity and prodigious vigor are pushing 
onward the great industrial forces toward this destiny. 

This is the great industrial act in the drama of modern 
civilization, at which the whole world is looking with amaze- 



512 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE, 

ment. Out of it will grow the consummation of human 
progress, or the most gigantic wreck of empire ever known 
to the history of national decay. 

The commerce of the United States has grown with the 
growth of the population. The commerce of this country 
has great natural advantages. The extended coast-line 
includes innumerable bays, river entrances and harbors, so 
that the shipping of the world can reach our Atlantic and 
Pacific states with the greatest convenience. This adapts 
the country to a rapid increase in national resources and 
wealth. And yet we have but just entered upon the great 
career of commercial prosperity. The increase of our popu- 
lation, and the consequent demands for home consumption, 
can in no way keep pace with the rapid development of the 
agricultural, mineral and mechanical resources. It is fair to 
conclude that, as the rate of increase in exports has been 
greater than the increase in population, the exports will at 
least increase as fast as the population and the consequent 
increased development of our resources. 

A great many things have affected our commerce both at 
home and in our export trade, which have not always been 
favorable to an increase of exports. The laws of exchange 
must, of course, extend to distant continents and islands, 
and tend strongly to make a neighborhood of nations. In 
our growing civilization we must want articles produced or 
manufactured by other people, and they must want the pro- 
ductions of our land and industry. Equitable exchange of 
commodities would hence become desirable. This is the 
great function of external commerce. But even a superficial 
view of such a country as ours would suggest the super- 
abundance of the necessary means of life and happiness, and 
abundance of many of the luxuries of life, from our own 
soil and mines and handicraft ; and that, though the doc- 
trines of "free trade" were to become the law of the land, 
the "balance of trade" ought to be largely in our favor. 
And so it unquestionably would be were it not for the grow- 
ing follies and prodigality of our people. Preference for 



THE GREATNESS OF AMERICAN TRADE. 513 

foreign over American fabrics and wares of equal and even 
superior value, and the extravagance of fashions dictated in 
a foreign capital, discourage home manufacturers and run up 
a heavy account against us in European markets. A pro- 
tective tariff, however high, has thus far shown but little 
power to combat these American vices and make up the 
losses they produce. Our policy in this respect has not been 
sufficiently settled and steady to determine historically the 
results of protection as compared with free trade. 

But our trade with foreign nations has, on the whole, 
advanced steadily. . The exports from the products of the 
soil are rapidly on the increase. In 1880 the entire exports 
of the country — mineral, agricultural and mechanical — 
amounted to eight hundred and twenty-three million nine 
hundred and forty-six thousand three hundred and fifty- 
three dollars. This indicates the future commercial great- 
ness of the country. The youngest of the great nations, 
America, has already outstripped all but one ; Great Britain 
alone exceeds it. 

Mr. Baxter, when a member of the British parliament, 
said : " It is astonishing to observe the vast quantities of 
produce in course of transit throughout the country. Huge 
steamboats on the Mississippi and the Alabama are loaded 
to the water's edge with bales of cotton. Those on the 
Ohio are burdened with barrels of pork and thousands of 
hams. Propellers on the lakes are filled with the finest 
wheat from Wisconsin and Michigan. Canal boats in New 
York and Pennsylvania are deeply laden with flour. Rail- 
road wagons are filled with merchandise, and locomotives 
struggle in the western wilds to drag trains richly freighted 
with the productions of every country under the sun. The 
United States reminded me, sometimes, of a great ant-hill, 
where every member of the community is either busy carry-, 
ing a burden along a beaten pathway, or hastening away in 
search of new stores to increase the national prosperity." 

The commerce of the United States, when it is once 
developed in just proportions to the immensity of the coun- 
33 



514 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

try, will place this republic, at a day not distant, at the lead 
of commercial nations, and make it the admiration of the 
world. 

The development of a nation depends greatly upon 
growth in learning and morals. Partridge has well said that 
"consent to bad government is consent to ruin. Good gov- 
ernment can come only of general intellectual and moral 
development." Education has received considerable atten- 
tion, and in the belief that it will receive still more lies the 
principal hope of the security of the government and the 
happiness of the people. 

In 1 88 1, there were fourteen million nine hundred and 
sixty-two thousand three hundred and thirty-six children of 
school age in the United States. There were nine million 
four hundred and twenty-four thousand and eighty-six in the 
public schools ; or about two thirds of the children are in 
school. In Russia about one child of every fifteen of school 
age is found in school ; in this country the proportion is about 
nine out of fifteen. The public school is a fundamental 
institution in America. It formed a part of the constitu- 
tional provision of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The 
idea of imparting the principles of an education without 
charge to the children was a Puritan idea engrafted on the 
New England life. It was opposed, on the one hand, to the 
neglect and degrading ignorance which pervaded the lower 
classes in England ; and, on the other, to the aristocractic 
feeling that education was for the children of gentlemen, and 
they were to be kept apart from the children of the common 
people. To the thinking philanthropist, there was a deep 
and destructive vice in this general ignorance and in these 
invidious distinctions. Schools, therefore, began to be pro- 
vided for all. But this idea, like all others of great value, 
must contend for its position. Two public enemies of the 
common schools have been very determined in their opposi- 
tion. The affectations of caste, esteeming the common mind 
vulgar, and the higher bred entitled to the distinction of 
exclusiveness in the manner if not in the fact of education, 



ADVERSE INFLUENCES. 515 

have long withheld the support which these great institu- 
tions of philanthropy have needed and deserved, and in whole 
states prevented their effective organization. 

Romish bigotry contends for the right of exclusive educa- 
tion from public funds, that children, not merely their own, 
but as many others as they can control, may be educated 
Catholics at the public expense. The government of the 
states generally treats them as Americans. It makes no 
objections to denominational schools; but they cannot be 
the public schools which the people, as Americans, support. 
Taxes must be equal and privileges equal under the law. 
Differences may exist, and be provided for by individuals 
and churches ; but, as states and a general government, we 
can know but one class, and they are citizens. We can have 
but one basis of taxation, and that is the public interest ; 
and but one obligation, and that is to afford equal privileges 
to all. Of course, just so far as the anti-American idea of 
exclusive Roman-Catholic education at the expense of the 
state extends, it interferes with our noble scheme of equal 
educational privileges. It is a disguised or open public 
enemy of a fundamental part of our free institutions. 

Notwithstanding these adverse influences, public schools 
are moving forward with free thought, and under the protec- 
tion of the enlightened public opinion which they so power- 
fully aid in forming. So strong are they becoming in the 
affections of the people that any amount of money may be 
had for their convenience or enlargement. 

But the whole people will not derive the full benefit of 
this intellectual blessing until each state shall have passed a 
compulsory school law, compelling every child to attend 
school for a certain time each year until a given age. The 
child not only belongs to the parent, and as such is the 
property of the parent, but belongs to the state, and as such 
is the property of the state. If the state considers it dan- 
gerous to have citizens without even the rudiments of an 
education, it has the right to provide against this peril. 

The feeling of an invidious caste is gradually wearing 



5l6 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

away, and the children of the wealthiest and best citizens 
make no objection to attending the school side by side with 
the poorest and most humble. 

As one of the strong historical facts of the republic, it 
should be stated that large numbers of our best business 
and public men have received their education only from the 
common schools, while multitudes of scholars and literary 
men are indebted to this fundamental American institution 
for their thoroughness in higher academic and collegiate 
education. The larger benefits of the common-school sys- 
tem appear, however, in the fact of their pervading, quiet 
influence upon the citizenship of our country; the general 
intelligence and elevation they impart to the freemen upon 
whom the elective franchise and the government of the 
nation devolve, rendering it morally impossible to deceive, 
and finally wrest from our patriot princes, the people, the 
liberties which, by reading, song, instruction and prayer, 
become the high trust of each individual, and of the whole 
combined. It would seem almost unnecessary to suggest to 
the American people the sacred duty of guarding and devel- 
oping their public schools as the source of patriotic devotion, 
and the indispensable means of high christian civilization. 
If it were possible to conceive of the wreck of this system 
upon the rock of sectarian bigotry, we might well say the 
days of the republic are numbered. 

True Christianity is so extensively diffused among the 
masses that it carries in life the sunlight through the pores 
of society, and extends its genial influences through the 
schools, and our common education is becoming largely 
christian without becoming sectarian. This will greatly aid 
in its elevation and broadening. 

The Sunday-school has, beyond question, become in 
America a truly national institution. No man writes a true 
history of the United States who fails to give it prominent 
position. As a legitimate product of the great revival of 
spiritual religion — first in England and then in America — 
it seemed very humane to assemble poor children together 



BENEFIT OF LEARNING AND MORALS. 517 

on the Lord's Day, and teach them to read. It was most 
fortunate that to the devout christian minds engaged in this 
benevolent enterprise, the Holy Scriptures should at once 
be regarded as the appropriate text-book for the more 
advanced among the children. Soon, quite naturally, por- 
tions of these sacred revelations were committed to memory, 
lessons were explained, and the most happy results were 
seen in the true moral elevation and improvement of the 
children. One of the first statesmen of the land received 
his first impulse to education in the Sunday-school. Another 
said he regarded his seat in the Sunday-school as of more 
importance than his seat in the senate. The Sunday-school 
comes in most appropriately to supplement the public 
schools, and does no small part to prepare the character and 
form habits of life which are of inestimable value in Ameri- 
can citizens ; the spirit of right and justice is imbued in a 
way which must contribute to respect for law and patriotism 
for country. 

The academy, college and university form each an impor- 
tant link in .the continuous chain of the American system of 
education. It will be utterly impossible to account for the 
national development of this country if the pulpit, the com- 
mon school and the college are left out. They are incorpo- 
rated in the frame-work of our society. While the state and 
the church are, and must remain, separate in the United 
States, in the college they meet and reveal their common 
identity of life and development. It has been the intelli- 
gent liberality inspired by religion that has established these 
institutions out of which have grown both a christian state 
and an educated church, yet each distinct in powers and 
mission. Not only an able and wise statesmanship, but an 
intelligent citizenship depends on these institutions for 
higher learning. 

In the moral and intellectual uplifting of the people of 
the United States a power of immense influence is the press. 
It is perhaps the most positive of all forces at work. In 1882, 
Lord John Russell mentioned before the House of Lords, 



5l8 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

" the multiplication and improvement in newspapers, as 
gratifying evidences of the augmented wealth and expanding 
culture of the middle classes in Great Britain." Thirty-eight 
years later, Mr. Kennedy said of America, **A free press has 
become the representative, and, for the masses, the organ, of 
that free speech which is found indispensable to the develop- 
ment of truth, either in the religious, the political, the literary, 
or the scientific world." Both these remarks are now receiv- 
ing their fulfillment in the United States. Our periodical 
literature has become one of our grand popular educators ; 
and the augmented wealth and expanding culture of our free 
citizens have given, at the same time, evidence of the power 
of a free press, and scope for the development of its power. 
The United States has been called " a newspaper-reading 
nation." In 1880 there were published eleven thousand four 
hundred and three papers and periodicals. New York and 
Illinois taking the lead with more than a thousand each. 
The aggregate circulation of all these amounted to thirty-one 
million one hundred and seventy-seven thousand nine hun- 
dred and twenty-four copies, all of which went out to impress 
the people in different directions. The book press work in 
the United States has no parallel in the world. It is safe to 
estimate that one book leaves the American press every 
working second for the year ; add to these the works that 
are imported and an approximate idea may be formed of the 
reading ability of the people of the United States. 

Watts' invention of the steam engine produced a revolu- 
tion in the navigation and locomotion of the world. Many 
unsuccessful experiments were made in different countries 
before success was attained, England and France experi- 
mented up to the near close of the eighteenth century, but 
without much result. In 1786 Fitch, of Pennsylvania, and 
Ramsey, of Virgmia, went far enough to establish the prob- 
ability of steam navigation. After repeated experiments, 
each leading nearer the success aimed at, in 1807, August 7, 
Robert Fulton, with a few friends and mechanics, and six 
passengers, started in a vessel of a hundred and sixty tons 



GREAT HELP OF SCIENCE. 519 

burden, from New York to Albany. This was the first 
steamboat trip in the world, and opened a new era in travel 
and transportation. It was not until 18 18 that a steamer 
crossed the Atlantic, making the trip in twenty-six days. So 
that to the genius of American skill and enterprise belongs 
the first honor of inland and ocean steam navigation. The 
world is all alive to-day with the quickened activity which has 
resulted to both mind and commerce. 

This great accomplishment in maritime science has acted 
wonderfully upon American life, and the just pride Ameri- 
cans feel in this American triumph produces a constant spirit 
of progress that seems born in each incoming generation. 
In this spirit the committee of the Universal Exhibition 
in 1851, reported that "many persons in various coun- 
tries claim the honor of having first invented small boats 
propelled by steam ; but it is to the undaunted perseverance 
and exertions of the American Fulton that is due the ever- 
lasting honor of having produced this revolution both in 
naval architecture and navigation." 

Nothing has contributed more to the development of the 
commerce of the United States than the railroad. It is the 
path along which supply travels to reach the demand, and is 
truly the highway of trade. 

The first railroad was built in the United States in the 
year 1825, and the first line was opened for traffic at 
Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1827. In 1830 there were only 
twenty-three miles in operation, which rose to two thousand 
eight hundred and eighteen in 1840; nine thousand and 
twenty-one in 1850; to thirty thousand six hundred and 
thirty-five in i860; to fifty-three thousand three hundred 
and ninety-nine in 1870; to ninety-three thousand six hun- 
dred and seventy-one in 1880. This rapid growth in our 
railway system is due more than all else to the growing 
demand for means to carry on the trafific of the country, and 
to furnish means for the carriage of the products of the land 
and the industries of the country. It will require a still 
more prodigious growth of this system. 



520 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

England and Ireland have but a little over eighteen thou- 
sand miles of railroad. All Europe, including the British 
Isles and the countries of the Continent, has but one hun- 
dred and five thousand eight hundred and ninety-five miles 
of road, while the United States in 1883 had one hundred 
and seventeen thousand seven hundred and seventeen. In 
the year 1882 there were ten thousand nine hundred and 
four miles constructed in the United States. 

One of the great enterprises of the age was the building 
of the trans-continental railroads, connecting the Atlantic 
with the Pacific, and as a result bringing Asia and America 
into relations of commerce. More than this, the vast trade of 
Europe with Asia must soon cross this continent, so that our 
great through east and west lines of railroad will bind three 
continents, Europe, America and Asia ; and when this day 
comes New York and San Francisco will hold the position 
of the two greatest commercial cities in the world. 

One of the unsettled questions in our national economy 
is that of the spirit of monoply in connection with the man- 
agement of the leading roads. The true object of the rail- 
way system of this country is not to make money for the 
management of any road, but to carry with as much dispatch,, 
economy and safety as possible the traffic of the country. 
This being the recognized mission of our railway system, it 
should somehow be managed to reach this end. Freight is 
twice as high as it needs be, passenger travel ought nowhere 
to be over one cent per mile. We do not yet know how 
best to manage our railroads; and these powerful corpora- 
tions in some cases have oppressed parts of our population. 
There are people who seek to cure this evil by making the 
federal government take possession of the railroads, or by 
making it build new lines. They would, to avoid a tem- 
porary inconvenience, put the transportation of products 
into the hands of the government ; forgetting that govern- 
ment does not transact its legitimate work economically and 
efficiently, and that to put the vast business of transporta- 
tion into its hands would be to corrupt it, to give it the 



THE TELEGRAPH AND CABLE. 52 I 

means of corrupting and abusing the people; to give to a 
bad ruler monstrous power, sure to be wickedly used, and, 
after all, to secure no advantage which cannot be got by- 
other and safer means. 

Telegraphy is another powerful force in our American 
progressive civilization. Telegraphic communication began 
by the use of signals. Roman generals and American 
Indians availed themselves of this convenient method of 
overcoming distance and time. Lights, flags, symbols 
formed of blocks of wood, illuminated letters, figures, tele- 
scopes, and mirrors, were used among the means adopted 
for this purpose. The way for the electric telegraph was 
prepared by the discovery, about the year 1729, that the 
shock could be transported long distances through conduct- 
ing media with great rapidity. But it was reserved for an 
American, Prof. Morse, in 1832, to conceive the true idea 
of the electro-magnetic telegraph. No sooner was teleg- 
raphy well established as a means of communication on land 
than the idea was conceived to connect Europe and America 
with the wire. If the trans-continental railroad is one of 
the great enterprises of this age first in importance, the 
Atlantic telegraph is the one of second importance. 

From the first successful experiments of Morse in New 
York harbor, submarine telegraphy went on rapidly. The 
great leading mind in the struggles of twelve years, extend- 
ing from 1854 to July 27, 1866, resulted in placing the Old 
and the New World in almost instantaneous connection, was 
Cyrus W. Field— a name which must ever stand high, not 
merely in the annals of America, but of the world. Dis- 
tinguished no less for his humility than for his high sense of 
justice, he awards to the great scientific men and noble 
patrons of progress in England the highest praise for their 
indispensable cooperation and unparalleled exertions uniting 
to secure for this great providential movement complete 
success ; but the world combines to place the crown upon 
the head of that distinguished American, Cyrus W. Field. 

Telegraphy has become one of the great energizing and 



522 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

economic forces in our national life. It is alike the means 
of intelligence and the spur of activity. And now the world 
knows itself, for throughout the length and breadth of our 
land we can read at our homes the great events transpiring 
in Europe on the same day of their occurrence, and even in 
anticipation of time by the clock. 

There are about one hundred and forty thousand miles of 
telegraph lines in operation in the United States, against 
about twenty-six thousand in Great Britain. 

The same spirit of monopoly, which is so hurtful in our 
railroad system, is the perplexity in the telegraph system. 
And a persistent effort has been made to put the business of 
telegraphing into the hands of the federal government. Not 
only would the purchase of the present lines be very costly, 
and their management by the government most certainly 
less satisfactory than now, but this scheme would greatly 
increase the number of office-holders, and consequently the 
means of corrupting the people. What is of yet greater 
moment, it would give to the party in power entire control 
over the public news, and enable a weak or unscrupulous 
ruler to poison the very sources of public opinion by giving 
false or partial reports of passing events, thus making the 
people incapable, in an important emergency, of forming a 
just opinion of the conduct or misconduct of their rulers. 

Telegraph communication is likely to be greatly modified 
by the telephone. The time may come when telephone 
communication will even supersede that of telegraphy. It 
has the advantage of cheapness and fullness ; by telegraph 
the communication must be merely a message, by telephone 
it may be a full and satisfactory conversation, lasting as long 
as may be desirable. 

In the United States in 1883 there were in use upward 
of three hundred thousand telephones, with nearly one thou- 
sand telephone exchanges in various cities of the country. 
The extent in mileage of telegraph wires put up for tele- 
phone use in the United States, is estimated at over one 
hundred thousand miles. 



THE MEANS FOR PROGRESS. 523; 

So we have all the tools of the industries, the triumphs 
of science and art, which the cunning brain of man has 
invented and his supple fingers learned to use at the great 
industrial call of progress, and we have abundant capital, the 
reserved fruit of labor, seeking a chance for growth and still 
farther increase. 



CHAPTER LI. 

ULTIMATE AMERICA. 

HUGO graphically says, relative to modern freedom and 
government : " It is the third huge gate of barbarism, 
the monarchical gate, which is closing at this moment. The 
nineteenth century hears it rolling on its hinges." This is 
true, not only of monarchy in government, but of the 
monarchical spirit in everything. Old forms and restraints are 
breaking, and men, under the freshness of this freedom, are 
moving rapidly to the front along the whole line of progress. 
This is preeminently the case in America. For this nation 
is now the grandest combination of power, wisdom, stability, 
union, freedom, progress and happiness the world has seen. 

The destiny of the country may be positively cast by its 
present prosperous condition, its great capabilities, and its 
spirit of energy and progress. Our people have displayed a 
greater inventive genius than any other known to history ; 
and this inventive spirit is directed to the practical and use- 
ful. The climate, soil and lay of the country are all most 
favorable to a rapid and prodigious growth in commerce. The 
great wealth in minerals point, with the nation's industries, 
to a day when the world will be amazed at the commerce 
of America. The broad and generous international spirit 
adopted by the government is the best encouragement for a 
great trade with the countries of the whole world. 

The" general faith in knowledge and education is the safety- 
valve for the nation, when strained by evil influences or 
threatened by dangerous tendencies. While the moral force, 
working like an undercurrent in the national life, tends to 
check the vices and vanities of unscrupulous men, who are 
more attentive to their personal ambitions than to the 
nation's good. 

Great political questions will adjust themselves, if per- 

524 



THE NATIONAL DEBT. 



525 



mitted by the party managers. Years ago the financial 
question was thought to be showing a phaze that indicated 
the ruin of our monetary system ; now it is the best in the 
world. 

The public debt is rapidly running down, and there is no 
reason why, in a short period, it should not be liquidated 
altogether. The government started under the Constitution 
with a debt of over seventy-five million dollars. The lowest 
point the debt reached was in the year 1835, when it was cut 
down to the small amount of thirty-seven thousand five hun- 
dred and thirteen dollars. In 1863 the war run the debt to 
over one billion dollars ; the highest point being reached in 
1865, when it was nearly three billion dollars. From this 
year reduction has been going on. The debt is now being 
reduced at the rate of nearly one half million dollars per 
month. The debt on December i, 1882, was one billion six 
hundred and seventy-five million twenty-three thousand four 
hundred and seventy-four dollars. This, if divided up, 
would be thirty-one dollars and seventy-two cents for each 
person in the United States ; the interest on this to one dollar 
and nine cents per person. This computation is made, less 
the amount in the United States treasury, December, 1882. 

This is a splendid showing for the 'finances of the country. 
The debt of Great Britain amounts to one hundred and nine 
dollars and four cents for each person ; that of France to one 
hundred and seventeen dollars and seventy-nine cents, while 
that of Spain amounts to the enormous proportion of one 
hundred and fifty-three dollars and thirty-four cents to each 
person. It is hard to see how financial relief can ever come 
to that country. 

In Great Britain the taxes this year amount to eighty-six 
million pounds, and fifty-nine million pounds are required 
to pay the interest on the national debt and for the needs of 
the army and navy. 

In Russia the ordinary expenditure has risen from fifty- 
eight and one half millions, in 1879, ^^ seventy-six and one 
fourth million pounds last year. This is an increase of not far 



526 THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

short of fourteen and three fourths millions, or over twenty- 
five per cent, without taking account of the war expenditure 
at all. The expenditure has grown under all heads, but the 
main increase is in the charge of the debt and the cost of 
the army. The charge of the debt last year was a little over 
nineteen and one half million pounds, out of a total expend- 
iture of seventy-six and one fourth million pounds, or 
somewhat over twenty-five per cent ; and the increase in the 
five years under review was somewhat over eight million 
pounds, or almost seventy per cent. The increase in the 
war expenditure was over three and one half million pounds, 
or nearly nineteen per cent. But here the extraordinary 
expenditure is left out of account. The increase in the 
cost of the army was, therefore, very much greater than is 
acknowledged. The Russian army, the debt, and the navy, 
added together, involve a charge of fully two thirds of the 
total outlay of the Russian Empire. There remains little 
more than twenty-eight million pounds for the civil admin- 
istration, including public works, the administration of 
justice, education, the church, and the support of the great 
ofifices of the state. Evidently this sum is entirely inade- 
quate for an empire of such enormous extent, so poor, and 
economically so backward. The truth is that the civil 
administration is starved to keep up an army and a foreign 
policy which are rapidly bringing Russia to the verge of 
bankruptcy. The revenue is eleven million pounds less 
than the expenditure. There is no official statement of the 
actual cost of the Russo-Turkish war; but it is possible to 
arrive at a rough estimate of the amount by noting the 
increase in the charge of the debt, and that makes it amount 
to about one hundred and seventy million pounds. 

As to France, the debt has risen to one billion six hun- 
dred and ninety million pounds, in all more than double the 
British debt, the annual charge being actually fifty-one million 
three hundred thousand pounds. The charges for the army 
and navy colonies have been recklessly raised, until the treas- 
ury has actually to provide eighty-eight million pounds a 



THE FUTURE IN PROSPECTIVE. 527 

year — more than the entire revenue of Great Britain — for 
interest on debt alone. France is still burdened with the 
tremendous dead-weight of eighty million pounds a year, or 
fifty shiUings per head on her population. In addition to this, 
the government has temporarily swelled the outlay on public 
works to twenty-three million pounds a year, and the total 
expenditure of the treasury this year reaches the previously 
inconceivable sum of one hundred and forty-two million 
pounds. Even in France, if the extravagance does not 
stop, the treasury will be driven to dangerous expedients. 
Retrenchment in the army cannot, for the moment, be 
hoped for. 

Other countries are not much better. In Germany and 
Italy great suffering and discontent prevail, while their 
finances are far from being in a flourishing state. Yet 
several of these European nations want to extend their 
boundaries in divers directions. And next to indulging in 
these prowling propensities at their neighbor's expense, their 
favorite occupation is to watch each other with a jealous eye, 
and so plunge deeper and deeper into what Mr. Gladstone 
once called " the emulation expenditure of." 

So that the financial condition of Europe is in a bad 
condition. This contrast brings out in better light the solid 
condition of the monetary system of the United States. 
The aggregate of the debts of the several states and that of 
the nation made the great financiers of Europe regard 
repudiation and the utter bankruptcy of the country as 
inevitable. With this load we moved out to meet our 
destiny, and it seems to be a glorious one. 

And on this solid basis, this republic, established by the 
wisdom and sacrifices of its founders, saved by the heroism 
and blood of our fathers, shall form a great empire of 
liberty, love and prosperity for the patriots of all climes; 
here shall be solved again and again the questions of right 
and truth; and here shall be done a large work in the 
advancement of the race, the enfranchisement of humanity, 
the happiness of man. 



CHAPTER LII. 

COMPENDIUM OF THE TENTH CENSUS, 1880. 

Attested by Superintendent of Census, Francis A. Walker. 

TABLE A. 

LAND IN FARMS BY STATES. 



Unimprov 'd 
Farms. 



Improved 
Farms. 



Value of 

Farm 

Machinery. 



Value of 
Farms. 



The United States 

Alabama 

Arizona 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho 

Illinois , 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



Acres. 
251,310,793 

13,479,628 

79,502 

8,465,944 

5,934,044 

549,304 

811,a5;i 
2,650,24;j 

343,387 

5,514 

2,849,684 

17,838,563 

130,391 
5,558,491 
6,487,345 
4,886,159 
10,677,903 
10,763,557 
5,533,534 
3,067,670 
1,777,131 
1,2;%,768 
5,510,378 
6,156,326 
10,638,535 
11,134,345 

14:3,073 
4,440,124 

186,439 
1,413,061 

833,476 

393,739 
6,062,892 
15,882,367 
6,448,135 
2,016,067 
6,368,334 

316,337 

9,335,56;3 

13,170,359 

33,641,905 

339,419 

1,596,137 

11,335,673 

925,075 

6,401,452 

6,190,590 

41,311 



Acres. 

284,771,042 

6,375,706 

56,071 

3,595,603 

10,669,698 

616,169 

1,642,188 

1,150,413 

746,958 

13,633 

947,640 

8,304,720 

197,407 

26,115,154 

13,933,738 

19,866,541 

10,739,566 

10,731,683 

2,739,972 

3,484,908 

3,343,700 

3,128,311 

8,296,863 

7,346,693 

5,316,937 

16,745,031 

262,611 

5,504,703 

344,433 

3,308,112 

2,096,297 

237,393 

17,717,863 

6,481,191 

18,081,091 

3,198,645 

13,433,007 

398,486 

4,133,050 

8,496,556 

13,650,314 

416,105 

3,286,461 

8,510,113 

484,346 

3,792,327 

9,162,528 

&3,122 



Dollars. 
406,520,055 

3,788,978 

88,811 

4,6;37,497 

8,447,744 

910,085 

3,162,628 

2,390,091 

1,504,567 

36,798 

689,666 

5,317,416 

363,930 

33,739,951 

20,476,988 

29,371,884 

15,652,848 

9,734,634 

5,4a5,525 

4,948,048 

5,788,197 

5,134,537 

19,419,360 

13,089,783 

4,885,636 

18,103,074 

401,185 

7,830,917 

378,788 

3,069,240 

6,921,085 

355,162 

42,592,741 

6,078,476 

30,521,180 

2,956,173 

35,473,037 

902,825 

3,303,710 

9,054,863 

9,051,491 

946,753 

4,879,385 

5,495,114 

958,513 

2,699,163 

15,647,196 

95,483 



Dollars. 
10,197,096,776 

88,9.54,648 

1,127,946 

74,249,6a"> 

262,051,283 

25,109,23:3 

131,063,910 

33,401,084 

36,789,672 

3,632,403 

20,291,835 

lll,910,r}40 

2,832,890 

1,009,594,580 

635,236,111 

567,430,337 

3a5, 178,936 

399,398,6:31 

58,989,117 

103,a57,615 

165,.503,341 

146,197,415 

499,103,181 

193,724,260 

92,844,915 

375,633,307 

3,334,504 

105,933,541 

5,408,335 

75,834,389 

190,895,83:3 

514,399 

1,056,176,741 

1.35,793,603 

1,137,497,353 

56,908,575 

975,689,410 

25,882,079 

68,677,482 

206,749,8:37 

170,4t)8,,SlS« 

14,015,178 

109,;346,010 

216,038,107 

13,844,234 

133,147,175 

357,709,507 

8:35,895 



528 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



529 



TABLE B. 

FARM PRODUCTS. 



BUCKWHEAT 



INDIAN 
CORN. 



The United States. 



Alabama. . 
Arizona . . . 
Arkansas . 
California. 
Colorado . . 



Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia. 
Florida 



Georgia . 
Idaho . . . 
Illinois . . 
Indiana . 
Iowa 



Kansas 

Kentucky. 
Louisiana . 

Maine 

Maryland . 



Massachusetts , 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 



Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 
New Jersey 



New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina. 

Ohio 

Oregon 



Pennsylvania . . 
Rhode Island . . . 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 



Utah 

Vermont 

"Virginia 

Washington . . . 
West Virginia. 



Wisconsin 
Wyoming . 



Bushels, 
43,997,495 

5,281 
339,051 

1,952 

13,463,561 

10T,116 

13,386 

377,434 

533 



210 

18,663 

374,750 

1,339,533 

383,835 
4,033,588 

300,373 
486,336 



243,185 
6,097 

80,138 

1,304,316 

2,973,965 

348 

133,031 

39,970 

1,744,686 

513,470 

77,877 
4,091 

50,053 

7,793,062 

2,431 

1,707,139 

920,977 

438,100 
17,783 
16,257 
30,019 

73,786 

317,140 

367,635 

14,233 

566,537 

9,740 

5,043,118 



Bushels. 
11,817,337 

363 



548 

33,^7 

110 

137,563 
3,531 

5,857 



403 



178,859 
89,707 
166,895 

34,431 
9,943 



383,701 
136,667 

67,117 

413,063 

41,756 



57,640 



437 
17,563 



94,090 
466,414 



4,461,200 

44,668 

280,229 

6,215 

3,593,826 
1,354 



33,434 
535 



356,618 
136,004 

2,498 
385,398 

399,107 



Bushels. 
1,754,591,676 

35,451,378 

34,746 

34,156,417 

1,993,335 

455,968 

1,880,421 
3,000,864 
3,894,364 
39,750 
3,174,334 

33,303,018 
16,408 
335,793,481 
115,483,300 
275,014,347 

105,729,335 

73,853,363 

9,889,689 

960,633 

15,968,533 

1,797,768 

33,461,453 

14,831,741 

31,840,800 

203,414,413 

5,649 

65,450,135 

12,891 

1,350,348 

11,150,705 

638,786 
35,690,156 
38,019,839 
111,877,124 

136,863 

45,831,581 
373,967 
11,767,099 
63,764,439 
39,065,173 

163,843 

3,014,371 

39,119,761 

39,183 

14,090,609 

34,330,579 



Bushels. 

407,858,999 

3,039,639 

564 

3,319,833 

1,341,371 

640,900 

1,009,706 
3,317,133 

378,508 
7,440 

468,113 

5,548,743 
463,336 
&3,189,300 
15,599,518 
50,610,591 

8,180,385 
4,580,738 
229,840 
3,365,575 
1,794,873 

646,159 

18,190,793 

23,883,158 

1,959,630 

30,670,958 

900,915 
6,555,875 

186,860 
1,017,630 
3,710,573 

156,537 
37,575,506 

3,838,068 
38,664,505 

4,385,650 

38,841,439 

159,339 

3,715,505 

4,733,190 

4,893,359 

418,083 
3,743,382 
5,333,181 . 
1,571,706 
1,908,505 

32,905,320 
33,513 



34 



530 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



TABLE B. — Continued. 

FARM PRODUCTS. 



Tho United States. 



Alabama... 

Arizona 

Arkansas . 
California . 
Colorado... 



Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia. 
Florida 



Georgia. 
Idaho . . . 
Illinois.. 
Indiana . 
Iowa 



Kansas 

Kentucky 
Louisiana. 

Maine 

Maryland . 



Massachsetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi . . . 
Missouri 



Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 
New Jersey 



New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina. 

Ohio 

Oregon 



Pennsylvania. . . 
Rhode Island... 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 



Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington . . . 
West Virginia. 



Wisconsin 
Wyoming. 



Bushels. 
19,831,595 

28,403 



32,.387 
181,681 
19,465 

370,733 

34,359 

5,9.53 

3,704 

3,965 

101,716 

4,341 

3,131,785 

303,105 
1,518,605 

413,181 

668,0.50 

1,013 

36,398 

288,067 

313,716 
394,918 
215,245 
5,134 
535,436 

430 
424,348 



34,638 
949,064 

240 

2,634,690 

285,160 

389,321 

13,305 

3,6a3,621 

12,997 

27,049 

156,419 

35,399 

9,605 

71,7:33 

324,4:31 

7,124 
113,181 

2,398,513 



Bushels. 
459,483,137 

1,539,657 

136,437 

1,369,715 

29,017,707 

1,425,014 

38,742 

2,830,289 

1,175,272 

6,402 

422 

3,159,771 

540,589 
51,110,.502 
47,284,853 
31,154,205 

17,324,141 
11,356,113 

5,0:34 
66.5,714 

8,004,864 

15,768 
35,5:32,543 
34,601,030 

218,890 
34,966,637 

469,688 

13,847,007 

69,398 

169,316 

1,901,739 

706,641 
11,587,766 

3,397,393 
46,014,869 

7,480,010 

19,463,405 

340 

963,a58 

7,331, :353 

2,567,737 

1,169,199 
a37,257 
7,836,174 
1,931, :333 
4,001,711 

34,884,689 
4,674 



Bales. 
5,755,359 

699,654 

6b'8',356 



54,997 
814,441 



1,367 

508,569 



963,111 

30,318 



389,598 



532,548 
3:30,621 
805,284 



19,595 



Pounds. 
155,681,751 

762,207 

313,698- 

557,368 

16,798,036 

3,197,391 

230,13» 
157,035 
97,946 



163,810 

1,289,.560 
137,149 
6,093,066 
6,167,498 
2,971,975 

2,855,832 
4,592,576 

406,67S 
2,776,407 

850,084 

299,089 
11,858,497 
1,&53,124 

734,64:3 
7,313,934 

995,484 
l,383,a56 

655,013 
1,060,.589 

441,110 

4,019,188 

8,837,195 

917,756 

25,003,756 

5,718,534 

8,470,273 

&5,680 

273,758 

1,918,395 

6,928,019 

973,246 
2,.5.51,1]3 

1,8:36,673 
1,;5H9,13;5 
2,681,444 

7,016,491 
691,650 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



531 



TABLE B. — Continued. 

FARM PRODUCTS. 



The United States 

Alabama 

Arizona 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia 
Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



Tons. 
35,305,713 

10,363 
5,606 
23,295 
1,135,180 
85,063 

557,860 

308,036 

49,633 

3,759 

149 

14,409 

40,053 

3,280,319 

1,361,083 

3,613,941 

1,589,987 

218,739 

37,039 

1,107,788 
264,468 

684,679 

1,393,888 

1,636,912 

8,894 

1,077,458 

63,947 
785,433 

95,853 
583,069 
518,990 

7,650 

5,240,563 

93,711 

3,210,933 

366,187 

2,811,654 

79,328 

3,706 

186,698 

59,699 

92,735 
1,051,183 

287,355 
106,819 
333,338 

1,896,969 
23,413 



Pounds. 

26,546,378 



1,444,077 



7,788 
21,236 
16,915 

500 



48,214 



9,895 

266,010 

10,928 



23,955 



21,628,931 



5,510 
244,371 

36,995 



109,350 
1,599 

703,277 



1,966,827 



Pounds. 
110,131,373 

810,889 



1,294,677 
35,369,687 



33,188,311 



1,718,951 



5,609,191 



52,077,515 
■ ■ ■ ■ 63,i53 



532 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



TABLE B.—Contintied. 

FARM PRODUCTS. 



The United States , 



Alabama . . 
Arizona . . . 
Arkansas . 
California. 
Colorado . . 



Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia. 
Florida 



Georgia . 
Idaho . . . 
Illinois . 
Indiana . 
Iowa 



Kansas 

Kentucky 
Louisiana . 

Maine 

Maryland . 



Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 



Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 
New Jersey 



New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina. 

Ohio 

Oregon 



Pennsylvania . . 
Rhode Island . . 
South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 



Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington . . . 
West Virginia. 



Wisconsin. 
Wyoming . 



Pounds. 
472,661,157 

453,426 

600 

970,2*20 

73,317 



14,044,652 

1,897 

1,278 

1,400 

31,182 

228,590 

400 

3,9a5,825 

8,872,843 
420,477 

191,669 

171,120,784 

55,954 

2.50 

26,082,147 

5,369,436 

83,969 

69,923 

414,663 

13,015,657 



57,979 

1,500 

170,843 

, 173,315 

890 

6,481,431 

36,986,213 

34,7a5,2a5 

17,335 

36,943,373 

785 

45,678 

29,365,052 

221,283 



131,433 

79,988,868 

6,930 

2,296,146 

10,608,433 



IRISH 

POTATOES. 



Bushels. 

169,458,539 

334,935 

36,249 

402,027 

4,550,565 

383,123 

2,584,363 

664,086 

283,864 

33,064 

20,221 

249,590 

157,307 

10,365,707 

6,2:32,246 

9,962,537 

2,894,198 
2,369,890 
180,115 
7,999,635 
1,497,017 

3,070,389 
10,924,111 
5,184,676 
303,821 
4,189,694 

228,702 
2,150,893 

302,143 
3,a58,828 
3,563,793 

21,883 

33,644,807 

722,773 

12,719,215 

1,359,930 

16,284,819 

60<),793 

144,943 

l,a54,481 

338,833 

573,595 

4,438,173 
3,016,766 
l,aa5,177 
1,398,539 

8,509,161 
30,986 



SWEET 
POTATOES. 



Bushels. 

33,378,693 

3,448,819 
5,303 

881,360 
86,384 



910 

195,937 

33,347 

l,687,6ia 

4,397,778 

349,407 
344,9:30 
133,368 

195,325 
1,017,854 
1,318,110 

329,.596 

450 

4,904 

3,610,660 
431,484 



13,628 



3,086,731 

3,317 

6,833 

4,576,148 

239,578 



184,142 

714 
2,189,622 
2,369,901 
1,460,07» 



1,901,521 
87,2i4 
7,134 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



533 



TABLE C. 

LIVE STOCK. 



VALUE OF 
LIVE STOCK. 



Dollars. 
The United States 1,500,464,609 

Alabama 23,787,681 

Arizona 1,167,989 

Arkansas 20,473,425 

California 35,500,417 

Colorado 8,703,342 

Connecticut 10,959,296 

Dakota 6.463,374 

Delaware 3,420,080 

District of Columbia 123,300 

Florida 5,358,980 

Georgia 25,930,352 

Idaho 2,246,800 

IlUnois 132,437,762 

Indiana 71,068,758 

Iowa 124,715,103 

Kansas 60,907,149 

Kentucky 49,670,567 

Louisiana 12,345,905 

Maine 16,499,376 

Maryland 15,865,728 

Massachusetts.. 12,957,004 

Michigan 55,720,113 

Minnesota 31,904,821 

Mississippi 24,285,717 

Missouri 95,785,283 

Montana 5,151,554 

Nebraska 33,440,265 

Nevada 3,399,749 

New Hampshire 9,812,064 

New Jersey 14,861,412 

NewMexico 5,010,800 

New York 117,868,283 

North Carolma 22,414,659 

Ohio 103,707,730 

Oregon 13,808,392 

Pennsylvania ^'^'§TI 

Khode Island 2,254,1^ 

South Carolina i^,279,412 

Tennessee 43,651,470 

Texas 60,307,987 

Utah 3,306,638 

Vermont i?'586,195 

"Virginia . 25,953,315 

Washington i'S^HSI 

West Virginia 17,742,387 

Wisconsin ^'^§'?^ 

Wyoming ! 5,007,107 



Number. 

10,357,488 

113,950 

6,798 

146,333 

337,710 

42,257 

44,940 
41,670 
21,933 
1,027 
22,636 

98,520 

24,300 

1,023,083 

581,444 

792,323 

430,907 
372,648 
104,428 
87,848 
117,796 

59,629 

378,778 
257,283 
113,309 
667,776 

35,114 

204,864 
32,087 
46,773 
86,940 

14,547 
610,35rf> 
133,686 
736,478;, 
124,107, 

533,'587, 

9,661 

60,660 

266,119 

805,606 

38,131 
75,215 

218,838 
45,848 

136,143 

352,428 
11,975 



Number. 

1,812,808 

121,081 
891 

87,083 

38,343 

3,581 

539 

3,703 

3,931 

68 



133,078 

610 

123,278 

51,780 
44,424 

64,869 

116,153 

76,674 

298 

12,561 

243 

5,083 
9,019 

139,778 
193,027 

858 

19,999 

1,258 

87 

9,267 

9,063 
5,073 

81,871 
19,481 
2,804 

33,914 
46 

67,005 
173,498 
132,447 

2,898 

383 

33,598 

636 

6,226 

7,136 
671 



534 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



TABLE C. — Continued. 

LIVE STOCK. 



The United States . 



Alabama . . 
Arizona . . . 
Arkansas 
California 
Colorado .. 



Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia. 
Florida 



Georgia . 
Idaho . . . 
Illinois . . 
Indiana . 
Iowa 



Kansas 

Kentucky. 
Louisiana . 

Maine 

Maryland . 



Massachusetts . 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 



Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 
New Jersey 



New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina. 

Ohio 

Oi'egon 



Pennsylvania . 
Rhode Island.. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas , 



45 West Virginia. 



Utah 

Vermont. 
Virginia . 
Washington 



Wisconsin 
Wyoming . 



Number. 
993,841 

75,534 

984 

25,444 



28,418 

11,418 

5,818 

4 

16,141 

50,026 
737 
3,346 
3,970 
2,506 

16,789 
36,166 
41,729 
43,049 
22,246 

14,571 

40,393 

36,344 

61,705 

9,020 

936 

7,234 

765 

29,152 

2,022 

16,433 
39,633 
50,188 
8,226 
4,132 

15,062 
3,523 
24,507 
27,312 
90,502 

3,968 
18,868 
54,709 

3,821 
12,643 

28,763 
718 



Number. 
12,443,120 

271,443 

9,156 

249,407 

210,078 

28,770 

116,319 

40,573 

37,284 

1,392 

42,174 

315,073 

13,&38 
865,913 
494,944 

854,187 

418,333 

301,883 
146,454 
1.50,845 
132,907 

150,435 

384,.578 
275,545 
268,178 
661,405 

11,308 
161,187 
13,319 
90,564 
152,078 

12,055 

1,437,855 

232,133 

767,043 

59,549 

854,156 
21,460 
139,881 
303,900 
606,176 

32,768 
217,033 
243,061 

27,623 
156,956 

478,374 
3,730 



Number. 
35,193,074 

347,5.3S 
76,.534 

346,757 

4,153,349 

746,44;} 

59,4;31 
30,344 
21,967 

56,681 

527,589 

27,336 

1,037,073 

l,100,.5n 

455,3.59 

499,671 

1,000,2«9 

i:35,6;n 

56.5,91,S 
171,184 

67,979 

3,189,389 

267,598 

287,694 

1,411,298 

184,277 
199,4.5;i 
133,695 
211,825 
117,030 

2,088,831 
1,715,180 
461,638 
4,902,486 
1,083,163 

1,776,-598 

17,311 

118,889 

673,789 

2,411,633 

233,131 

439,870 
497,389 
292,883 
674,769 

1,336,807 
140,225 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



535 



TABLE C. — Continued. 

FARM PRODUCTS. 



1 

8 

9 

10 

11 
12 
13 
14 
15 

16 

17 
18 
19 
20 

21 

22 
23 
24 
25 

26 

27 
28 
29 
30 

31 
33 
33 
34 
35 

36 
37 
38 
39 
40 

41 

42 
43 
44 
45 

46. 

47 



The United States. 



Alabama.. 
Arizona. . . 
Arkansas . 
California 
Colorado . . 



Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia. 
Florida 



Georgia. 
Idaho . . . 
Illinois. . 
Indiana . 
Iowa 



Kansas 

Kentucky 
Louisiana. 

Maine 

Maryland . 



Massachusetts . 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 



Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire . 
New Jersey 



New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina. 

Ohio 

Oregon 



Pennsylvania. . . 
Rhode Island... 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 



Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington . . . 
West Virginia. 



Wisconsin , 
Wyoming. . 



Number. 
47,681,700 

1,253,462 
3,819 

1,565,098 

603,550 

7,656 

63,699 

63,394 

48,186 

1,132 

287,051 

1,471,003 
14,178 
5,170,366 
3,186,413 
6,034,316 

1,787,969 
2,235,3^5 

633,489 
74,369 

335,408 

80,133 

964,071 

381,415 

1,151,818 

4,553,133 

10,378 

1,241,734 

9,080 

53,437 

319,069 

7,8.57 

751,907 

1,4.53,541 

3,141,333 

156,332 

1,187,968 

14,121 

638,198 

3,160,495 

1,950,371 

17,198 
76,384 

956,451 
46,838 

510,613 

1,128,835 
.567 



Pounds. 

777,350,387 

7,997,719 

61,817 

7,790,013 

14,084,405 

860,379 

8,198,995 

2,000,955 

1,876,375 

20,930 

353,156 

7,424,485 

310,644 

53,657,943 

37,377,797 

55,481,958 

21,671,763 

18,311,904 

916,089 

14,103,966 

7,485,871 

9,655,587 
38,831,890 
19,161,385 

7,454,657 

28,572,124 

403,738 

9,735,198 

335,188 

7,347,373 
9,513,835 

44,837 

111,933,433 

7,313,507 

67,634,363 

2,443,725 

79,336,013 
1,007,103 
3,196,851 
17,886,369 
13,899,330 

1,053,903 
25,240,836 
11,470,933 
1,356,103 
9,309,517 

33,353,045 
105,643 



Pounds. 

27,273,489 

14,091 
18,360 
26,301 
2,566,618 
10,867 

836,195 

39,437 

1,713 

2,406 

19,151 

30,395 

1,035,069 

367,561 

1,075,988 



58,468 

7,618 

1,167,730 

17,416 

839,538 

440,540 

533,138 

4,339 

283,484 

55,570 
330,819 

17,430 
807,076 

66,518 

10,501 
8,363,590 

57,380 

2,170,345 

153,198 

1,008,686 
67,171 
16,018 
98,740 
58,466 

126,737 

1,545,789 

85,535 

109,200 

100,300 

2,281,411 
2,930 



536 



THE SCIENXE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 





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THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



537 



TABLE E. 

GOLD AND SILVER PRODUCT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE YEAR ENDING 

MAY 31, 1880. 



Total . 



Alabama . . 

Alaska 

Arizona . . . 
California . 
Colorado . . 



Dakota . . 
Georgia . . 

Idaho 

Maine 

Michigan. 



Montana 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

New Mexico 

North Carolina. . . 



Oregon 

South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Utah 

"Virginia 



Ounces. 
1,614,741.2 

63.9 

287.9 

a 10,2.53.8 

839,676.7 

130,607.6 

159,920.1 

3,919.8 

71,578.3 

145.1 



Washington 
Wyoming . . . 



87,354.0 

236,468.7 

533.1 

2,387.5 
5,754.4 

53,101.3 

630.8 

96.7 

14,105.5 
450.9 

5,569.3 
837.9 



Dollars. 
23,379,663 

1,301 

5,951 

' a 311,965 

17,150,941 

3,699,898 

3,305,843 

81,039 

1,479,653 

2,999 



1.805,767 

4,888,243 

10,999 

49,.354 

118,953 

1,097,701 

13,040 

1,998 

291,587 

9,321 

135,800 
17,321 



Ounces. 
31,797,474.3 



39.4 

a 1,798,920!8 

890,158.3 

12,800,119.8 

54,770.1 

256.6 

359,309.1 

5,569.0 

a 20,000.0 

2,246,938.4 

9,614,561.3 

13,375.0 

303,455.0 

108.0 

31,496.2 
43.3 



3,668,565.5 



788.6 



Dollars. 
41,110,957 



51 

a 3,325,835 
1,150,887 
16,549,274 

70,813 

332 

464,550 

7,200 

a 25,858 

2,905,068 

12,430,667 

16,000 

392,337 

140 

27,793 
56 



4,743,087 



1,019 



Dollars. 
74,490,620 

1,301 

6,003 

a 2,537,790 

18,301,828 

19,349,173 

3,376,656 
81,361 

1,944,303 
10,199 

a 35,858 

4,710,835 

17,318,909 

26,999 

441,691 

119,093 

1,125,494 
13,096 

1,998 
5,034,674 

9,321 

136,819' 
17,321 



538 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



t" CO 






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THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



539 



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THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



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IN N iH rl CO rl ic 



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THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



541 



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THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



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543 



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546 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



TABLE G. 

ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The United States . 



Alabama . . 
Arizona . . . 
Arkansas. . 
California. 
Colorado . . 



Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia. 
Florida 



Georgia , 
Idaho.... 
Illinois . 
Indiana , 
Iowa 



Kansas 

Kentucky 
Louisiana . 
Maine . . . . 
Maryland . 



Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 



Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 
New Jersey 



New Mexico . . . 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 



Pennsylvania . . 
Rhode Island. . 
South Cai-olina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 



Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washing-ton . . . 
West Virginia. 



Wisconsin . 
Wyoming . 



PERSONS OF 10 YEARS OF AGE AND UPWARD. 



Enumer- 
ated. 



Number. 
36,761,607 

851,780 
32,922 
531,876 
681,062 
158,220 

497,303 
99,849 
110,856 
136,907 
184,650 

1,043,840 
25,005 
3,269,315 
1,468,095 
1,181,641 

704,397 
1,163,498 
649,070 
519,669 
695,364 

1,433,183 

1,236,686 

559,977 

753,693 

1,557,631 

31,989 

318,271 

50,666 

286,188 
865,591 

87,966 
3,981.438 

959,951 
3,399,367 

130,565 

3,203,215 

220,461 

667,4.56 

1,062,130 

1,064,196 

97,194 

264,0.52 

1,059,0:34 

55,730 
438,587 

965,713 
16,479 



Returned as unable 
to read. 


Number. 
4,923,451 


Percent 
13.4 


370,379 
5,496 

153,339 

48,583 

9,321 


43.5 

16.7 

38.8 

7.1 

5.9 


20,986 
3,094 
16,912 
21,541 
70,219 


4.2 

3.1 

15.3 

15.7 

38.0 


446,683 

1,384 

96,809 

70,008 

28,117 


43.8 
5.5 
4.3 
4.8 
3.4 


25,.503 
2.58,186 
297,312 

18,181 
111,387 


3.6 
22 2 
45;8 

3.5 
16.0 


75,&35 
47,112 

20,.551 
315,612 

138,818 


5.3 

3.8 
3.7 
41.9 

8.9 


1,.530 

7,830 

3,703 

11,982 

39,136 


4.8 
3.5 
7.3 
4.3 
4.5 


52,994 
166,625 

367,H<tO 
86,7.54 
5,376 


60.3 
4.3 

38.3 
3.6 
4.1 


146,138 
17,4.56 
321,78(J 
294,385 
256,323 


4.6 

7.9 

48.2 
27.7 
24.1 


4,851 

13,993 

360,495 

.3,191 

53,041 


5.0 
4.9 

34.0 
5.7 

13.1 


38,693 
437 


4.0 
3.6 



Returned as unable 
to wi'ite. 



Number. 
6,339,958 

433,447 
5,843 

303,015 
53,430 
10,474 

38,434 
4,831 
19,414 
35,778 
80,183 

530,416 
1,778 
145,397 
110,761 
46,609 

39,476 
348,392 
318,380 

23,170 

134,488 

92,980 

63,723 

34,.546 

373,201 

208,754 

1,707 
11.528 

4,069 
14,302 
53,249 

57,156 

219,600 

463,975 

131,847 

7,423 

238,014 
34,793 
369,848 
410,733 
316,433 

8,826 

15,8:37 

430,3.53 

3,889 
85,376 

55,5.58 
5.56 



Per Cent 
17.0 

sao 

7.8 
6.6 

5.7 
4.8 
17.5 

18.8 
43.4 

49.9 
7.1 
6.4 

7.5 
3.9 

.5.6 
29.9 
49.1 

4.3 
19.3 

6.5 

5.3 

6.2 

49.5 

13.4 

5.3 
3.6 
8.0 
5.0 



65.0 
5.5 

48.3 
5.5 
5.7 

7.1 
11.2 

55.4 

38.7 
29.7 

9.1 

6.0 
40.6 

7.0 
19.9 

5.8 
3.4 



THE SCIENCE OF NATIONAL LIFE. 



547 



TABLE H. 

DEBTS, REVENUES, EXPENDITURES AND COMMERCE OF NATIONS. 



Countries. 



Public Debt. 



Revenue. 



Expendi- 
tures. 



Imports. 



Exports. 



Argentine Republic . . . 

Australia 

Austria-Hungary . . . 

Austi'ia proper 

Belgium.. 

Bolivia 

Brazil 

Canada 

Chili 

China 

Colombia 

Denmark 

Ecuador 

Egypt 

France 

Germany (all the states) 
G reat Britain & Ireland 

Greece 

Guiana 

'Hawaii 

Hungai-y proper 

India, British 

Italy 

Japan 

Luxembourg 

Mexico 

Netherlands 

Norway 

Paraguay 

Persia 

Peru 

Portugal 

Prussia 

Roumania 

Russia 

Servia 

Siam 

Spain 

Sweden 

Switzerland 

Turkey 

United States 

Uruguay 

Venezuela 



5 54,371,335 

389,480,915 

205,999,961 

1,.577,933,013 

231,000,000 

30,000,000 

407,500,000 

158,745,581 

54,833,335 

3,200,000 

19,843,935 

53,000,000 

19,270,000 

372,198,400 

5,291,860,700 

1,100,000,000 

3,890,969,680 

98,012,000 

460,000 

444,800 

331,303,401 

233,423,850 

3,042,000,000 

363,327,974 

3,400,000 

119,232,270 

410,000,000 

26,240,000 

13,098,417 

No uebt 

213,483,680 

446,445,000 

336,661,048 

111,100,560 

2,488,-579,449 

7,130,000 



3,151,836,300 

60,000,000 

2,335,000 

1,312,773,300 

1,840,598,811 

47,061,042 

67,354,260 



$ 20,961,893 

79,637,440 

58,961,342 

194,139,142 

54,048,972 

3,939,574 

55,373,840 

23,468,585 

20,443,977 

134,000,000 

4,910,000 

11,900,000 

1,704,830 

37,165,000 

592,799,560 

330,240,000 

406,325,275 

8,180,075 

580,000 

275,856 

116,267,410 

273,649,885 

294,846,505 

59,933,-507 

1,438,660 

17,811,135 

44,151,676 

14,364,220 

316,599 

8,340,000 

29,801,195 

33,309,140 

138,530,680 

19,578,885 

.537,500,000 

3,983,100 

4,000,000 

163,492,760 

33,563,101 

9,100,000 

98,764,0.50 

333,536,611 

8,936,714 

4,680,000 



$ 22,000,000 
83,098,760 
58,014,842 

312,775,200 
54,695,060 
4,505,504 
75,746,14' 
25,161,713 
31,375,728 



$ 44,867,000 
236,895,915 
368,500,000 



$ 47,765,000 
156,384,380 
353,700,000 



6,366,930 
11,900,000 

1,520,000 
53,545,000 
589,334,16? 



412,017,475 

10,720,350 

580,000 

555,236 

144,590,048 

292,503,145 

312,561,940 

59,204,609 

1,409,:344 

23,128,218 

44,270,530 

10,726,500 

370,031 

8,750,000 

33,755,375 

38,838,716 

199,341,350 

19,578,885 

490,557,403 

3,869,018 

4,000,000 

166,158,390 

21,873,139 

9,163,000 

140,000,000 

267,643,958 

4,614,649 

4,448,000 



476,760,000 

5,000,000 

111,311,338 

96,960,195 

39,379,113 

105,000,000 

10,787,654 

57,241,360 

7,596,264 

35,665,000 

918,967,400 

930,675,000 

1,814,999,475 

39,101,400 

1,811,770 

3,046,000 



401,940,000 

5,647,000 

89,110,116 

83,638,820 

29,784,195 

101,252,000 

13,711,511 

45,966,600 

8,634,331 

68,918,000 

633,618,000 

739,100,000 

1,343,916,830 

17,993,000 

3,341,040 

4,548,000 



334,388,565 
3,330,385 
32,508,367 



324,595,525 

221,383,855 
28,363,000 



39,063,40' 
95,416,000 
36,500,000 
565,.595 
5,635,000 
24,179,094 
38,131,-520 



31,659,151 

226,720,000 
25,000,000 
607,653 
2,813,000 
57,500,000 
36,448,600 



50,896,536 

365,436,400 

6,197,000 

7,100,000 

66,670,000 

85,906,800 

Not given 

73,430,000 

760,989,056 

15,938,000 

14,800,003 



47,730,301 

386.484,000 

5,500,000 

8,300,000 

75,564,000 

63,532,960 

Not given 

51,000,000 

853,781,577 

17,443,000 

11,300,000 



Total debts . 



$26,478,083,837 



, LLi 3 iS^G 



kJ 



